I am a gardener.
Looking down at the teeming world below, I am very pleased with myself. I am proud, because I am a gardener.
God gave me a plot of land. I did not squander money and what little life I had on it, the way those wretches do. I created infinite possibility on that plot.
I still remember the first day I came here. Back then I watched the second-generation rich living in their drunken, gilded excess — their magnificent, glittering towers — and I felt a continuous ache. God, why did you put me in such a wretched little place? One hundred and fifty square meters, all told. That was all I had. The plot was not small exactly, but it was barren to an extreme.
I worked day and night. I set aside my pride and went begging from the rich — begging for seeds of cheap flowers, begging for their discarded fertilizer. Not one household was willing to give me steady work; they thought I was beneath them. Looking at the pride in their eyes, I felt sick to my stomach. I would never again lower myself to live under someone else’s roof.
I took matters into my own hands. I crept into near-deserted forests and dug up rare and unusual plants. I broke open fertile soil and hauled it, day and night, back to my plot. I began to farm; I labored alone.
At last, I watered every beautiful flower on that land with my sweat. Trees soared. Ancient vines wound through them. A hand-carved stream murmured past. It was a paradise here, brimming with life. At last, the rich no longer looked down on me. The poor began to fear me. I had made myself a fine gardener — a fine person. I had done it myself.
I set down my hoe and looked around with pride. But there was only silence.
Tree shadows swaying. Water light scattered and broken. Strange, vivid flowers. Weeds spreading in all directions. I sat on a patch of grass and looked at my meager one hundred and fifty square meters. The sun hung limp and pallid; the faint sky held not a single cloud. All I could see was white — infinite white.
A gentle wind passed. Fallen leaves rustled for a moment, then went quiet again.
Green bamboo stood straight.
Ah… jagged stones.
I stared around me — horrified, frantic, shaking, lost — staring at the colossal monument I had built with my own hands, unprecedented and unrepeatable. I reached out in bewilderment and touched it. It felt cold. Sharp. Pitiless. Empty. I drew my hand back.
It struck me, all at once, that I had always been alone.