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---
title: epigraph
subtitle: An epigraph
genre: prose
project:
title: Elegies for alternate selves
css: elegies
order: 1
next:
title: How to read this
link: howtoreadthis
prev:
title: Death's Trumpet
link: deathstrumpet
...
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future
beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and
another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and
another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and
Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and
Attila and a pack of [other lovers][] and queer names and offbeat professions,
and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these
figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in
the crotch of this fig tree, starving to [death][], just because I couldn't
make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one
of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there,
unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one,
they plopped to the ground at my feet.
[other lovers]: spittle.html
[death]: deathstrumpet.html
|
