(fiction)
There are so many things I would love. If given half a chance. There are millions and millions of things out there in the world. There has to be some of them that I would love if. If the opportunity was available. If they weren’t discontinued the day before I found them. If they weren’t extinct. If they existed in the first place. If their inventor hadn’t died from childhood mumps because her parents were too afraid of common place vaccines. If they didn’t think that faith alone would protect her from infection. If the inventor hadn’t died in gang related violence. Been starved in the ravages of war torn country. I could love what they had invented. What they had discovered. What they had packaged and sold to the public in pretty pink boxes. With white ribbons. Signature ribbons. Signature white ribbons.
But it’s not just that.
I would love giraffes if I could. If I would. If I would put the effort into it. If I would come out of my numbness surrounding the deaths of inventors and went to the zoo. On a rainy day. I have never been to the zoo on a sunny day. All my trips to zoos were planned by school. Rescheduling for sunshine: out of the question. But I haven’t been on a yellow school bus in years. And I could go. I could go and walk to the giraffes. The sea lions. Bypass the monkey house and the butterfly gardens. I could beat feet and with my adult legs make it all the way to the back of the zoo. To places I never could get to when I was seven. When my legs were too short and my endurance nonexistent. And then I could see giraffes. And I would be in love with them if I saw them.
I’ve seen pictures of them. Of giraffes. And well, they’re giraffes. They are like all other pictures of animals. Of animals in the zoo. Of animals in the wild. They are like all other pictures of people. People in designer clothes. People at the circus. People taking snap shots before the Eiffel Tower. But I think if I could see giraffes, real giraffes, meet them in person, I would like them. I think they would be quirky. Like my friends. My friends who I take pictures of but in those pictures they look like all other people in all other pictures. So I flatten them out and in two dimensions they just are. Two dimensional models or hippies or vagabonds. And on paper they are not my friends. They just are. And I do not love them in pictures. And I cannot love giraffes in pictures.
But it’s not just that.
I would love pistachio streusel. If there were such a thing. I would love it merely for its existence. An existence that proves its worth simply by being. By its life and by mine and our coexistence. Perhaps we would progress to a psychologically unhealthy state of codependency. Perhaps. If given half a chance.
