In my catalogue of evils I
inscribe three contentious agencies: first, the hypocrites who pretend to be
the guardians of human rights and liberalism, but who rationalize the
debauchers, the violators and the roadside bombers; second, the celebrities and
super-rich in their displays of obscenity and ignorance; and third, the quiet,
the passive and the indifferent who cannot see the evil all around them.
Someone said he had an uncle who
lived in three centuries: born in the late 1890s and died soon after the third
millennium began. But what does it mean
to have lived so long and never risked annihilation? Or to sit in silence counting
the final months come by?
It takes six months or more for
the chicks after hatching to decide amongst themselves who is female, who is
male, and thus who goes out to the dinner table, who stays around to lay and
brood. Until then, they don’t know what they are. It is like that in so many things.
Years ago when I was young and
healthy, the elderly around me seemed relics from another world. Their youths belonged to the nineteenth
century, as they did still. In their
sixties and seventies, they were already decrepit and needed help to get
around. I held one grandfather’s hand to
take him to the doctor, to watch out as we crossed the street—and he had shrunk
in height. The other lay in bed always
dying. Now I have reached their age and
also live in another century.
Every morning I throw Wheatbix out to the birds. Within seconds they gather to commence the
feast. Some days they arrive before I
have completed the service. On days when
I am late, they strut around in front of the kitchen door to admonish me. Other days they send scouts to fly past if
they sense lurking cats in the bushes. After all these years, they still don’t trust
me.
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