Mary, they said, it’s called a statement. They took me out back to a
courtyard where they always ate lunch and showed me a little tree
that was, sadly, dying. Something with four legs had eaten it rather
badly. Don’t over-emote, they said. I promised I wouldn’t but I was
thinking to myself that the something-with-four-legs had certainly
over-emoted and that the tree, in response, was over-emoting now, being
in the strange little position of dying. All the cops were sitting around
eating sandwich halves and offered me one. This one’s delicious,
said a lieutenant, my wife made it. Seeing as it was peanut butter and
jelly I thought he was over-emoting, but I didn’t say anything. I just sat
looking at the tree and eating my sandwich half. When I was ready I
asked for a pencil and they gave me one of those little golf pencils. I
didn’t say anything about that, either. I just wrote my statement and
handed it over—it was a description of the tree which they intended to
give to their captain as a Christmas present—I mean my description—
because the captain, well, he loved that tree and he loved my writing
and every one of the cops hoped to be promoted in the captain’s heart
and, who knows, maybe get a raise. Still, after all that sitting around in
the courtyard eating sandwich halves, I had a nice feeling of sharing, so
when they asked me if I had anything else to say I told them that in the
beginning you understand the world but not yourself, and when you
finally understand yourself you no longer understand the world. They
seemed satisfied with that. Cops, they’re all so young.
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