Page 171 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

painful it was to be a plant predestined to stay where you were planted. When he
appeared at the garden gate carrying a bucket of water, I grew excited. My
branches swayed, and I couldn’t stand up straight. That was the water of life.
The more I absorbed, the better I felt, and I grew more readily. It rains only two
or three times a year here. When Mother Nature is not dependable, one can only
depend on the gardener. We willow trees rely on the nutrition provided by water.
I couldn’t figure out why the gardener had to move me to this sandy land, and

sometimes I imagined that this was a scheme of his.
The gardener’s face was expressionless. None of us could figure out what was
going on in his mind. The grass, flowers, and shrubs all had a high opinion of
this man. I was the only one whose views about him wavered. For example, one
day when he was near me he suddenly brandished a hoe and excavated. He dug
deeper and deeper. With one blow, he chopped off part of my roots. I shook
violently from the pain. Guess what he did next? He filled in the hole he had dug
and evened it out, and then went elsewhere to dig. He often engaged in this
puzzling excavation. Not only did he injure me, he also hurt other plants in the
rose garden. The strange thing was that as far as I could tell, none of the other
plants complained about him. Rather, they considered their injuries badges of
glory. I heard all kinds of comments at night.
Taiwan grass: We generally don’t know how our inner system operates.
Although we’re curious, we haven’t received any information about this. It’s the
gardener who satisfies our curiosity. Even if we pay a high price for
communicating with him, we’re quite happy to do that.

Date tree: I greatly appreciate the way the gardener brandishes his hoe. In
fact, he’s much like one of my forefathers whom I haven’t seen. Every day, I
tried hard to imagine how he would look. Often at daybreak, I came close to
succeeding, but in the end I didn’t. The gardener has remarkable ability. As soon
as he wields the hoe, I can see my forefather’s fertile image against the backdrop
of the boundless starlit sky. One time, he cut my taproot. That’s when I was
happiest. I greeted his hoe with my roots, as if it were my forefather.
Indian azalea: He’s attractive when he carries water. He has aspirations.
Otherwise, why would he choose the rose garden as our home?
Dandelion: This is an arid area. Every day I dream of pails of water. It’s when
I dream that my fine hair grows. The gardener is so kind. His two big water
buckets lead me to dream constantly. Sometimes, I wish he would dig me up

with his hoe and throw me into his empty bucket. I hear passersby on the road
say that I have a lot of hair. They say I’m not like dandelions in the sand. They
don’t know that my luxuriant hair is related to the water buckets.
Wisteria: The gardener is brilliant! Although I don’t love him, I think of him
every day. Each time I start thinking of him, my pigment is enhanced, and I