The Rotten Fig.

I visit the fig tree each day,

In hopes of determining what one can see -

Colour, shape, size, precarious positioning on the branch.

Worse, I hope to determine what one cannot see -

Taste, crispiness, sweetness, succulence.

I am not hungry.

I sit there, before the fig tree,

And wait for one to fall.

To wonder or to dread the future is to be transfixed in such a way that only a douse of ice water, a hand on a hot stove - a cruel awakening of the senses - can capture your mind and tie it to the flimsy dock we call the present. Where the waters are never still and the wind billows and the rope frays as if some rodent has come and purposefully gnawed at it. Where those ‘what ifs’ and ‘almosts’ swirl in a dizzying current, leaving behind no more than a corpse of the self. The current self. The body that you overturn in welcome expectation and find nothing but swarming flies and maggots scavenging on your bloated remains.

I am peckish.

I sit there, before the fig tree,

And watch the figs fall.

I cannot seem to catch them before landing,

I cannot seem to pick them up after.

The puppeteering hands silently rule us all - demanding we eat when we are not hungry, sleep when we are not tired, play when we are grieving, work when we are resting - demanding we revolt against our very nature. The hands paint together a idle tableau of blurred edges, seamlessly blending together in nothing more than streams of busy nothings.

As every unfortunate double edged sword, the one who always lives in the present is the one who cannot reflect, cannot change, cannot have foresight into decisions - cannot hope, nor dream. It seems an equally sacrificial condemnation to swear to the present as it is to not give it a second glance. One is sentenced to repeating the past, regarding the future as if it's passed, and all the while the now begs for your attention like any middle child, the dog you forgot to feed, the clothes on your chair, your unwashed hair.

I am starving.

I sit there, before the fig tree,

And the figs surround me.

I sit there starving, watching the figs rot.

I sit there starving, watching the figs rot and fall,

Even when there is nowhere left to fall upon.

Then the unpicked seams, the liminal nothing that floods the mind but not the senses. The drawing of the sword, the delay between the camera turning on and pressing record - the ghost footage that haunts the narrative of our very lives. No ticking. Nothing at all, and everything to be.

We should have been nothing more than a coat of fur and bared teeth hunting for the next prey and basking in the sun when the hunger is satiated. We should have never felt hunger at all.

Only one fig remains - the finest fig,

I reach for it,

I pluck it, salivating at the promise,

I draw to take a bite,

Maggots chew away at its core,

The rotten fig,

The floor.

Our calloused fingers are healed over. Our cells and our bones, the very structure of our breath, regenerate in dozens. Our canopies browned, fallen and green again. Each meticulously crafted tapestry of memories and not one thing to show proof of the life lived.

Perhaps living is to stand before time itself and say you will not be taken by it.

Lest the fig rot, or fall.

Written by Julian Kumar.

Julian Kumar is a creative who paints a portrait of magic, and reality’s place lies in haunting the frame.