Read Online Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri - Free Book Online Page A

somewhat frantically for the dove when he saw someone coming down from the platform of the darkened loggia. It was a thin, tiny figure, with a large head. One moment the figure was at the loggia; and the next moment, somewhat transformed in stature, the figure stood near the flowers, watching him silently.
    â€˜Who are you? Where did you come from?’
    â€˜Me?’ the figure said. ‘My name is unimportant, like all names. And I dwell in the loggia. Why do you ask?’
    â€˜Well, I was surprised to see you.’
    â€˜I’ve been watching you all night.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜You were there to watch.’
    He went on looking for the dove.
    â€˜Whatever it is you are looking for can’t be found,’ the dwarf-like figure said.
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜In this place if you look for something you won’t find it.’
    â€˜Why is that?’
    â€˜You have to find things first before you look for them.’
    â€˜You’re talking nonsense.’
    â€˜It’s true. The laws of this place are strange.’
    â€˜Explain yourself.’
    â€˜Well, it’s like this. If you are looking for something, that means you have lost it. And if you have lost it, you can’t find it. Quite simple.’
    The breeze stirred again, darkening the large-headed figure, who remained dwarf-like and still and massive.
    â€˜I don’t think that’s simple at all. In fact, it’s quite complicated.’
    â€˜Well, look at it this way. You shouldn’t have lost it in the first place.’
    â€˜You mean if you lose something you can’t find it?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜But what if for once I do?’
    â€˜You wouldn’t have found the same thing.’
    â€˜You’re being perverse.’
    â€˜Not at all. You only have one chance here. If you have something, keep it, be aware of it, treasure it, enrich it. Because, here, if you lose it then you didn’t have it in the first place. You weren’t aware of it. You didn’t guard it. You didn’t give it life. And so it wasn’t real for you. In this place things lose their reality if you are not aware of them.’
    The breeze was silent now. The square seemed to have changed a little, as if it were fading, or receding, or disappearing into the silence.
    The dwarf-like figure continued.
    â€˜Take me, for example. I kept looking for the answer to things. I kept looking, and I never saw, and I became lost. I lost myself, lost my own reality. So I should know.’
    â€˜But how can I find without looking?’
    â€˜You will never find by looking. You have to find first. Take me, for example. Too late I discovered that the answers were always there. Always.’
    â€˜And you never found them?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Because I was looking for them. How can you look for something that is there?’
    â€˜I suppose you can’t.’
    â€˜Of course you can’t. Things only disappear, only become lost, because you’ve stopped thinking about them, stopped living with them in some vital way. Things and people have to be planted in you, have to grow in you, and you have to keep them alive. If you forget to keep them alive, you lose them. Many people have walked out of life because they stopped seeing it. Many have fallen into the abyss because they were looking for solid ground, for certainties. Happy are those who are still, and to whom things come. Answers are like that. They go to those who expect them. So, if you want to find something find it first.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜Find it in yourself, I suppose.’
    â€˜You talk in riddles.’
    â€˜The simplest things are riddles and paradoxes. Have you heard about people looking for love?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜They never find love, do they?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜They never find the love they are looking for.’
    â€˜I’m not so