a visitor

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The day i turned eight (July 13, 1968) a car from a far-away place drove into our street, gleaming in the fiery glow of morning. It drew up in front of the house, and out stepped the sole occupant. He closed the door without a sound and moved ever so gently toward me— who had just spent the night in tears because the previous day I had learned that my dog’s life expectancy was only 14 years. 

”Good morning, I am God,” he said to me quite simply, albeit in a seraphic tone. “Would you allow me to sit for a moment?” Then he sat down beside me on the old bench, and after a brief silence he started to ramble about everything and nothing. I sensed that he was not there to express his thoughts clearly per se, but rather to suggest something, as in the poems of Stéphane Mallarmé or André Breton, which I would sometimes read. I did not dare point it out, but for goodness sake, I thought, if I were God, I would engage people in prodigiously deep and intelligent conversations abounding with meticulous wonder and meditative precision. 

Anyhow, we conversed in this manner for a while, him going on with his still somewhat vague words, as if he didn’t really know what to say, and me with mine, secular and grieving. After a half an hour or so he rose, bid me a very polite farewell, returned to his car, started the engine, did a U-turn, and disappeared around the street corner. I never saw him again. 

All my life I’ve reflected on that brief encounter. Today I think that, deep down inside, he must have realized some time beforehand that he had made a mistake by granting dogs such a short life expectancy, and wanted to apologize in person for such an outrageous error in planning.

—Jean-François Beauchemin

Archives of Joy

(treasure)

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