"My wife said one day, 'How I'd love to have some living thing in this room. . . .' Living things were connected to the sun; I thought, a plant, yes, a plant. She urged me to get a big potted plant, one that didn't require much care. I raced to the flower shop, overjoyed that there was something I could give her. A typical male, at that time I didn't know benjamin from saintpaulia. I only knew I didn't want a cactus, so I bought her a pineapple plant. It was a plant I could understand; it had little fruit growing on it and everything. When I carried it into the sickroom she looked delighted and thanked me again and again.
"She was getting closer and closer to the end. One evening, three days before she went into a coma, she said to me, just as I was leaving, 'Please take the pineapple home.' To look at her she didn't seem worse than usual. Naturally we hadn't told her she had cancer, but it was as if she knew, as if she were whispering her last wishes. I was surprised and said, 'Why? I can see that it's withering, but wouldn't you rather have it?' But she begged me, in tears, to take it home, this sunny plant from a southern place, before it became infused with death. I had no choice. I took it in my arms.
"Because I was crying my eyes out, I couldn't take a taxi. It was colder than hell, too. That may have been the first time it occurred to me I didn't like being a man. When I calmed down somewhat, after walking as far as the station and having a drink in a little bar, I took the train. That night the freezing wind whisded through the apartment. With no one there, it could hardly have been called a home. I trembled, holding the pineapple tight against my chest. The sharp leaves stuck my cheeks. In this world, tonight, only the pineapple and I understand each other—that thought came straight from my heart. Closing my eyes, as if against the cold wind, I felt we were the only two living things sharing that loneliness. My wife, who understood me better than anyone, was by now—more than I, more than the pineapple—on intimate terms with death.
"Soon after that she died, and the pineapple withered, too. I didn't know how to care for plants and had overwa- tered it, you see. I stuck it out in a comer of the yard, and although I couldn't have put it into words, I came to understand something. If I try to say what it is now, it's very simple: I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn't up to me.
It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness. So I became a woman, and here I am."
I understood what she was trying to say, and I remember thinking, listlessly, is this what it means to be happy? But now I feel it in my gut. Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated—defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Still, to cease living is unacceptable.
Tonight, again, I felt the darkness hindering my breathing. In my heavy, depressed sleep, I battled each demon in turn.
kitchen; banana yoshimoto
"She was getting closer and closer to the end. One evening, three days before she went into a coma, she said to me, just as I was leaving, 'Please take the pineapple home.' To look at her she didn't seem worse than usual. Naturally we hadn't told her she had cancer, but it was as if she knew, as if she were whispering her last wishes. I was surprised and said, 'Why? I can see that it's withering, but wouldn't you rather have it?' But she begged me, in tears, to take it home, this sunny plant from a southern place, before it became infused with death. I had no choice. I took it in my arms.
"Because I was crying my eyes out, I couldn't take a taxi. It was colder than hell, too. That may have been the first time it occurred to me I didn't like being a man. When I calmed down somewhat, after walking as far as the station and having a drink in a little bar, I took the train. That night the freezing wind whisded through the apartment. With no one there, it could hardly have been called a home. I trembled, holding the pineapple tight against my chest. The sharp leaves stuck my cheeks. In this world, tonight, only the pineapple and I understand each other—that thought came straight from my heart. Closing my eyes, as if against the cold wind, I felt we were the only two living things sharing that loneliness. My wife, who understood me better than anyone, was by now—more than I, more than the pineapple—on intimate terms with death.
"Soon after that she died, and the pineapple withered, too. I didn't know how to care for plants and had overwa- tered it, you see. I stuck it out in a comer of the yard, and although I couldn't have put it into words, I came to understand something. If I try to say what it is now, it's very simple: I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn't up to me.
It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness. So I became a woman, and here I am."
I understood what she was trying to say, and I remember thinking, listlessly, is this what it means to be happy? But now I feel it in my gut. Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated—defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Still, to cease living is unacceptable.
Tonight, again, I felt the darkness hindering my breathing. In my heavy, depressed sleep, I battled each demon in turn.