Selected Cronicas

KEEPING AN EYE ON THE WORLD

I am an extremely busy person. I keep an eye on the world. Each morning I look down from my terrace at the strip of beach with the sea beyond. Sometimes the spray seems whiter and I can tell that the restless waters have advanced during the night leaving their mark on the sand. I watch the almond trees on the street below. Before falling asleep, and keeping an eye on the world in my dreams, I examine the night sky to see if there are stars twinkling against a blue background, because on certain nights the sky is not black but ultramarine. The world keeps me fully occupied, because I recognize that God is the cosmos, and that is a responsibility I would be prepared to forgo.

I see a little boy who cannot be more than ten, dressed in rags and unbelievably thin. A future case of tuberculosis, if he is not already infected.

When I visit the Botanical Gardens I soon become weary. There I have to keep an eye on thousands of plants and trees, especially the gigantic water-lilies.

Take note that I have said nothing about my emotional reactions: I spoke only of some of the thousands of things and people I keep an eye on. Nor does anyone pay me to do this job. I simply keep the world under observation.

Is it hard work keeping an eye on the world? Most certainly. I can remember the terrifying face of one woman I saw in the street, a face devoid of any expression. I also keep an eye on thousands of slum-dwellers on the nearby slopes. I observe the seasonal changes in myself: I inevitably change with every season.

You must be wondering why I keep an eye on the world. I was born with this mission. And I am responsible for everything in existence, even for those wars and crimes which cause so much physical and spiritual havoc. I am even responsible for this God Who is in a perpetual state of cosmic evolution towards greater perfection.

Since childhood I have kept an eye on a swarm of ants: they crawl in Indian file, carrying a tiny particle of leaf which does not prevent them from pausing to chat whenever they meet another procession of ants coming from the opposite direction.

I once read a standard textbook about bees and I have observed them ever since, especially the queen bee. Bees fly and nourish themselves on flowers: that much I have learned.

But ants have such a neat little waistline. Yet tiny as they are, they embrace a whole world, which eludes me unless I examine them closely: an instinctive sense of organization, a language which goes beyond the supersonic to our ears and probably attuned to instinctive feelings of love-cum-sentiment, for ants can speak. I kept a watchful eye on these insects when I was little and now that I so dearly long to see them again, I cannot find a single ant. I know they have not been exterminated otherwise I should have been told. Keeping an eye on the world also requires a lot of patience: I must wait for the ants to reappear. Patience. While watching the flowers open imperceptibly, little by little.

But I still have not found the person to whom I should report my findings.