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“It’s a root. And roots prevent you from getting the blues.” She picked one from the bowl; it gleamed under the kitchen light. “You see, carrots become bright orange because it’s so dark in the ground. They make their own light because the sun never reaches that far—like those fish in the ocean who glow from nothing? So when you eat it, you take in the carrot’s will to go upward. To heaven.”
“When did he die, your husband?” “When does anybody die?” she shrugged. “When God says Well done.”
How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvaged trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a lightbulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody’s son.
“And your father, what did he believe in?” “No Catholicism, no Judaism for him. But he did convert to Alcoholism.”
“My granddad told me when trees stand on their own, with no other trees around them, their branches grow wild like that. Branches twisted all over the place, like they’re trying to grab at everything and nothing’s around to hold on to.” “Yeah, I see it.” Hai studied the leafless tree, its branches scattered as if frozen in the midst of waving for help. “But when they’re in the forest, with their people, you know? They all go straight up, reaching tall as they can. Isn’t that odd? Probably bullshit, to tell the truth—but I believe it.”
Sometimes, I get like this. And…I want to climb inside the TV and just stay there.” She paused, her eyes searching. “That sounds crazy, yes?” “You’re just clinically depressed,” he heard himself say. “Means you’re sad without a reason.” Her forehead wrinkled at the idea. “No, I didn’t outlive Stalin to be depressed.” She shook her head defiantly. “You kids blame everything on feelings. Do you blame starvation on feelings too? Floods? Earthquakes?” “Look, I have it too. It’s just like weather. Like clouds and rain and stuff. They go away. But some of us spend more time in London, you know? Or
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“To be alive and try to be a decent person, and not turn it into anything big or grand, that’s the hardest thing of all.
If you can be nobody, and stand on your own two feet for as long as I have, that’s enough.
“People don’t know what’s enough, Labas. That’s their problem. They think they suffer, but they’re really just bored. They don’t eat enough carrots.”
Then she reached out and brushed aside his bangs. “Tu esi mano draugas.” “That some sort of Christmas prayer?” She shook her head. “Then what’d you say?” She stared at the water, saying softly, “You are my friend.”
That’s the only real thing about me, that I’m sitting here next to you at this bus stop. That’s it. Everything else, what I do, what I’ve done, the goals and promises, they’re all, like, ghosts. For most people, their ghost is inside them, waiting to float out when they die. But my ghost is in pieces.” He pointed with his chin at the scattered trees. “It’s all over the place, caught in all the spots where I snagged myself.”
“Hey. Do you think a life you can’t remember is still a good life?” The question sounded almost silly aloud. “I mean, like—” “Yes,” said Sony. “Why’s that?” “Because someone else will remember it.”
Somebody goes ahead and dies and all of a sudden you become a box for them, he thought, you store these things that no one has ever seen and you go on living like that, your head a coffin to keep memories of the dead alive.
“Look, being fucked up is actually what’s most common. It’s the majority of who we are, what everybody is. Fucked up is the most normal thing in the world. You’re both fucked up and you’re normal, got it?”
So you don’t have to be anybody’s soldier. You can be a person doing what you do every day and that’s fucking enough.
