Jung Young Moon - Vaseline Buddha

But for some reason, perhaps for no reason at all, I began to walk along the street opposite from the one I’d come from. Perhaps it was because of a vague thought that came to me while I was looking at a gently winding railroad track several hundred kilometers outside the train station, at the railroad track beyond the curve, which disappeared, drawing a curve, or came from beyond the curve, or stayed where it was as a curve, and bending the curving railroad in my mind into an angle that would make train service impossible, or while I was watching a station employee waving a flag, as a train left after coming into the station and stopping for a moment. Or maybe it was because at that moment, I thought, Here’s a man who came to see a woman he knew nearly nothing about, who knew nearly nothing about him, and he’s in a dilemma because the woman, who invited him, rejected him for some reason, and he’s somewhat curious as to what would happen to him if he stayed in her town for a little longer, so let’s give him a little time and see what happens to him, making him walk into a story, one way of which would be to give him a little push and let him walk as his footsteps lead him, and with that thought, I began to walk blindly, and felt that I was walking into a story with him, entering naturally into a story. And I might have thought that when you don’t know what to do, especially when you don’t know what to do, you can do something that makes you feel even more as if you were doing something that didn’t make sense, that you should do such things, and that I could do any number of such things, thereby trying to convince myself with a thought that wasn’t very convincing even to myself.

I cut across the town and walked along a little country road that suddenly began where the town came to an end, and when I thought that it was like Molloy’s town, it really seemed to be Molloy’s town, although I wasn’t sure what resemblance there was between the town and the idea I had in mind of Molloy’s town, and then there were hills and forests there, and the landscape and terrain were such that the place may well have been where Moran, a character in Molloy, wandered around with his son, so it was fit to be called Molloy’s town, and it occurred to me that it was because of Molloy that we became friends soon after we met, and again, I wanted to meet the girl who had stood me up but resisted the desire, and thought somewhat absurdly, but quite benevolently for her, that perhaps what she’d wanted to do for me was to let me roam aimlessly in Molloy’s territory, thinking about him. And I thought of a vague story titled, “Roaming in Molloy’s Town,” and thought that I was already in the story, and, thinking about getting lost in your own story, kept on walking.

Looking at a white goat standing on a rock on a low hill, I walked around the hill to where the field began, and saw something blocking the path. It wasn’t the goat I’d just seen. So it wasn’t that the goat had come down in the meantime and was blocking my path. What was blocking my path was a cow.

Because the path was so narrow that someone had to step aside, we stood, hoping that the other would step aside, but the cow stood in a respectable and dignified manner, with no signs of being flustered. The cow had very large breasts with many nipples under the belly. Strangely, I felt a little intimidated before the cow, and thought that if I had a tail, I may well have lowered my tail completely. And I suddenly recalled the fact that T.S. Eliot was afraid of cows, and somehow I understood him completely, and wondered if one day, perhaps in his childhood, he had an experience involving a cow, which remained in his subconscious mind, and came to fear cows since then, or if he came to fear cows for no reason after seeing a cow one day, or after thinking a certain thought about cows, or if he decided to fear cows so as to think that there was nothing as frightening as cows in the world, causing a fear of cows to take root in his heart and body, as compassion or love for, or fear of, someone takes root and sprouts in the heart, but I had no way of finding out the exact reason. Perhaps Ibsen, too, came to have a fear of very small dogs for such reasons. But it didn’t seem like such a bad thing for there to be something in the world you were particularly afraid of, whether cows or dogs, or a coat hanging on a hanger in a closet or a ball of yarn with a long strand of yarn unraveled on the floor, or the red comb of a rooster or the eyes of a dead fish.

And again, through a strange chain reaction of thoughts, and being aware that the chain reaction was working in a strange way, I had the somewhat ridiculous thought that the misfortune of cows began when humans began to fill their hungry bellies with cow meat and bones, and as if that weren’t enough, to squeeze out every last drop of milk from their large breasts. And as I thought about it a little more, I became curious as to what cows and sheep and goats and camels and horses and such thought of humans squeezing out every last drop of their milk, but in any case, they didn’t seem to have any great complaints. No, it seemed that they did have great complaints, but were hiding the fact and letting their anxiety grow. Whenever I saw them quietly ruminating, it seemed to me that they were gnashing their teeth. Even though I had walked only a little ways from the hill where the goat was to the field where the cow was, I felt as if I had been wandering around somewhere for a long time, which pleased me even more.

Because there was plenty of time to think about who was blocking whose path — the cow seemed to be dawdling in its own way, as if it didn’t have any pressing matters to attend to — I concluded that I was blocking the cow’s path — the path, in fact, wasn’t so narrow, so we could easily pass through without either of us stepping aside, and I thought we were blocking each other’s path, even though it was more likely that I was blocking the cow so that it couldn’t pass — but still, regardless of that, I was conflicted for a brief moment as to if the cow, which was bigger than me, should step aside, or if I, who was smaller but older, should, but I didn’t think of it in terms of us being human and not human. But in the end, I, a civilized man, gave way, and broke off a piece of a baguette, a staple in the French diet, that I happened to have on me at that moment, and proffered it to the cow, which sniffed at it and declined, not because it couldn’t tell if it was edible or not, but, as it seemed to be saying when it looked at me, because it couldn’t trust me. So this time, I gave the cow the apricots which I also happened to have on me. And the cow ate them, and blinked its eyes a few times in my direction as if in gratitude, but again, it looked dignified, without making the kind of a face that some animals do, asking for more, when you give them something to eat. I felt pleased to have seen the cow eat the apricots with relish, and I felt grateful for the girl who stood me up, and for the fact that I was stood up, and felt almost happy because of it. After a little while, the cow, which would soon be forgetting its encounter with a stranger, went on its way, looking carefree, and I, too, went my way, feeling carefree. As I walked away from the cow, which I thought must be feeling good because of its encounter with me, I felt that my steps had become lighter, and regardless of that, looking back at the cow, I thought that we were all just going past ourselves to arrive at ourselves.

Anyway, at that moment, something that often frightens me happened and I was about to get diarrhea, and I was put in a situation that required that I run into the forest nearby, but I didn’t like to run so I walked into the forest, barely managing to keep the diarrhea from spilling out, and as I relieved myself (so far in my life, I’ve never run in fright, or away from a great danger, but countless are the times when I’ve had to run to a nearby bathroom or woods because of diarrhea), I thought that there was no song that I’d prepared for singing birds, when there were no singing birds, or at least, no sound of singing birds, and I let the birds that must be singing a song somewhere do the singing, and I became lost in my thoughts. Anyway, as I was relieving myself, I saw mushrooms, which I couldn’t tell were edible or not, but seemed edible because they weren’t colorful, growing here and there around me, and picked a mushroom near me while having diarrhea, but I couldn’t tell whether it was okay to eat it or not, or whether it was good for diarrhea or not.