on the wild

If he gave her his distaste for the sea, he taught her that his sacred wonder before the smallest shiver that ran through nature. Since then she became obsessed with evoking for the world that beauty available to whoever would look. Such a philosophy brought her the misfortune of spending her miserable old age lying in the weeds, eyes vulnerable to the anthills which she always found beautiful. The little beasts chewed her eyelids until, giving in to sleep, they fell. She had too keep them open with her fingers in order to take care of the day’s tasks.

- Patrick Chamoiseau, pg. 40f, Texaco, trans. Rejouis & Vinokurov