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In conclusion - and with the thought that some may read what I have written - it occurs to me that I am expected I to add an epilogue to these stories. On the one hand, this expectation reminds me again how hard it is to decide when and where they end. The story of Roz, for example, requires a postscript, which I add now, hot off the press as it were. So hear this: the latest gossip has it that Roz is in a permanent relationship, and has been for some time now. The relationship concerned is with a female, no less, and of the same species! So things can always change….let's wish them all the very best. Roz was a good egg. May he not be the last! (Of course we don't know how frank he has been about his past!) On the other hand, it might be appropriate for me to set the record straight on a number of points… I must make it clear that all the stories are absolutely true and all similarity with imaginary characters living or dead is entirely coincidental. Some readers seem to have assumed for no good reason that they are fictitious… Now is it right, dear friends, that reality should be confused with fiction? Of course - unavoidably - there has been a certain amount of free improvisation, given that I unfortunately did not have the privilege of being eyewitness to all the incidents here described. For example I was not present when the dialogue took place between the snake and the fig tree. Nevertheless I assure that they were recorded with the same reverence and attention to detail as one sees in a good restorer of antiquities filling in the missing sections of an ancient or Byzantine fresco. I must also mention that Eleni Pavlopoulou succeeded in creating the pictures of the animals - with total accuracy - without having seen even one of them. Perhaps she copied them from inside my mind that day I discovered my cranium is transparent. Or perhaps she simply possesses the ability - as few painters really do - to snatch little scenes from the life and dreams of others and bring them back to mind when people least expect it, or when they have forgotten them. All these animals have something in common. They lived for some brief period of their lives - or perhaps longer - at the Hellenic Wildlife Hospital (EKPAZ). And now the time has come for me to reveal to you the question that truly puzzles me. How does, say, a buzzard who has undergone treatment for two months at the Wildlife Hospital and then been freed, tell of her experiences to one of her peers who could not possibly imagine what she is thinking about? Another bird who could not imagine in a million years what antics those loudmouthed big-headed bipeds can get up to! Anyway, whatever they can or cannot learn from us, from the anthropocentric viewpoint animals can certainly teach us something about our deeper selves, and what they teach us is in every case different from what we believed up to the time that we made the new discovery. Every time it happens it confuses us and disorients us anew. And if it is about something we need to know in order to be "human", it is right that we should be confused and disoriented. We exist only in relation to - and by comparison with - other forms of life. Without them - without dialogue and communication, that is - we are condemned to stagnation. Exactly as we would be without music, without pictures, without any sense of the world. Because, without knowing it, we also see through their eyes…… Oh yes. Because owing to their attractiveness animals have had to put up with a lot from us - and now is not the time for me to talk about this and depress both you and myself - I will give you the telephone numbers of EKPAZ in case you happen to come across some wounded, or helpless, or poisoned, wild animal…. Write it down:
0297 028367 (Aigina) http://www.ekpaz.gr (Internet) |