Lyon (France) Place Jean Macé (map)
Saturday, 12 September 2015
Fundamentally there’s nothing that differentiates me from a cauliflower: we are made of the same dust. And, yet, the cauliflower is not journeying in the darkness between gloomy high-rise buildings. It does not float in the blackness of an urban canyon towards the lights of an Asiatic snack bar. It does not see the picture of a German shepherd that explains to the hungry diners what the meat in their soup is. It does not stupidly ask whether one can eat «dog» here and seek proof in the mound of meat in the form of a paw. It is not offended when the female chef explains to it that it is «not mature enough» for dog. Neither is it overly excited when the woman then kindly proceeds to serve him a couple of bowlfuls of the stuff.
Should the cauliflower, contrary to all expectations – after all, what do we actually know about the life of plants – develop such fantasies in its sleep, it would definitely not ask, on waking up, about how it could possibly have dreamt about dog meat in Lyon, the European capital of rascality.
Only, what would happen if it were to worry nonetheless about having unsuitable dreams? What then would the difference be?
Now, and that’s quite certain, it would disintegrate long before I would. Nevertheless, and this too cannot be denied, something might rapidly become out of its atoms that could perhaps dream – of dog-meat soup as well as of swine trotters. The whole difference then, I suspect, is only a question of time.
First Publication: 24-9-2015
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