WRITING ON THE WALL

Some two hours I’ve been wandering through the Swedish woods today to find two runic stones. While searching for the first one, which in the end I decided that someone must have stolen, square and simple, I stumbled over a sheep farm. Oh, this always makes me forget about all my frustrations and grievances. I’m good friends with sheep. They come to me running, even without my doing anything at all to entice them to it. And then they all bleat. Ever so loudly and enthusiastically that I can swear it’s a symphony orchestra I’m witnessing. During years of mutual attraction, I’ve also noticed that there’s always one sheep in the flock that develops a more intense attachment to me than the others. Today was no exception. Now, I tend to be pretty cool about saying goodbye to the creatures in general and the special one in particular when I’m ready to leave, but for some reason this one sheep today that must have seen me as honey or something, was very upset to see me go. But go I had to. On to finding the other stone, I urged myself on in order to avert the feeling of sadness. I found it. And yet, while feeling its lines and following its inscription something flashed through me. I had to go back and touch my sheep without my gloves on, and give it a name. So I did. Now, some would say that this is completely insane, but I can assure you that the love-stricken sheep didn’t think so. It was ecstatic. I named it Hestra. It was happy. And so was I. For a while, for it made me ask myself this question: why the fuck don’t I live on a sheep farm? Why the fuck not, indeed? I tried to answer this question by arguing with my position. I even threw in some alethic and deontic logic, but that merely made more upset. Luckily I was saved from such dry madness by Oscar Wilde’s insight: “arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.” I saw a whole different kind of writing on the wall. But I’ll keep that to myself. If I should be tempted to reveal the secret, I know where to find Hestra. I’ll whisper it into her ear.