A Tale for the Time Being

by Ruth Ozeki

An unfinished book, left unattended, turns feral,

Death is certain. Life is always changing, like a puff of wind in the air, or a wave in the sea, or even a thought in the mind. So making a suicide is finding the edge of life. It stops life in time, so we can grasp what shape it is and feel it is real, at least for just a moment. It is trying to make some real solid thing from the flow of life that is always changing.

The only part I remember goes like this: Shiki fu i ku, ku fu i shiki.

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

At least he was still here with me, and maybe—maybe he wouldn’t leave.

Basically, when a cat offers you his butt to scratch you have to do it and not mind the rest of the package.

“You picked a lemon in the garden of love.”

It’s funny how time can make all the difference in whether or not you feel close to somebody,

even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.

I do not feel like a person who is going to die tomorrow. I feel like a person who is already dead.

I am a time being about to expire.

“Are you happy?” he asked. “Here? In this world?”