I was telling Mary that I’d dreamed of a former boss dressed in a Santa suit, and she asked if I’d asked for a raise. Dream on, I said.
People never really die, she said, which prompted me to tell her that Borges had written a story that said if it weren’t for death things wouldn’t count, that is, if we were immortal.
Thank goodness there was a turnover, she said. If there weren’t, the Earth would be overrun. It was bad enough as it is. It would be the same if birds were immortal too, or any other beings for that matter. A balance must be maintained. We make our contributions, then leave, to be resurrected in our successors’ dreams, as is her mother in hers from time to time. She did wonder, though, if there were anything good to say about ticks. I couldn’t think of any, nor, for that matter, if there were much to be said in behalf of mankind in general. Why were we such shits?
Power, the lust for, was all she could summon up in reply.
The Christian myth says Adam and Eve wanted to be gods, though I think they were merely curious. I don’t think of knowledge-seeking as a sin, as a lust for power, nor do I think we need pay obeisance to an all-powerful being. Actually, many of our inhuman acts stem from that.
As for Mary, she said she was merely content to feel she was a part of existence — a miracle in any event, whether or not it was God’s handiwork, or just was.
There she was, she said, in the sunlight with O’en, simply taking in the fragrant day and talking to the trees, participating in the equilibrium of creation. As immortal, I thought, as a mortal can get.