We had taken the bus to Yuen Long and gotten to Nam Sang Wai. It was a sunny afternoon and neither of us had class. The green place felt like it was being crowded out from the residential areas around it.
“How did you like your part time job and entering the society.” He asked, almost smirking.
“I have been doing it for a month. The pay is only so so. It’s ok, I guess.” I lied.
“Do you think I could do it?” He asked.
“You mean a part time job? but why?” I asked thoughtfully. “It eats away your time. It’s work, for god’s sake. Work.”
“and it’s that bad huh?” Bensimon said. I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me.
“I wished I could also use up your wishes. And you can wish that I never had to do something I wouldn’t want to. Including going to work.”
“be careful of what you wish for. The wish genie always liked to screw you – or me - up.” Bensimon said: “Say you wished for everyone to go to work painlessly. The world would become weird, like everyone would declare they love going to work everday. Praise the lord, so happy I can go to work, etc. Say you wished people didn’t need to go to work. And they would all be unemployed and imprisoned. So you wished people never felt like they were going to work, and they would all become slaves. Say you wished to un-invent the concept of going to work. And suddenly the world was totally inefficient. Something like that. The wishes always backfired. I am sure in the new world, the wish genie had to show you the failure samples and give you a cooling period and sunset clause, for the sake of the stupidity of humans, but you still aren’t getting what you want. You know what I mean?”
I didn’t. I didn’t want to work at the part time shop, if it wasn’t for the money.
Bensimon nodded, as if he read my mind. “but it builds character, doesn’t it? It’s a matter of attitude, you can manage and learn a lot of things, to become an adult, like how to listen to orders, count money, audit accounts, etc.”
“I guess so,” I said silently angrily. I tried to look into his eyes, to wonder what thoughts were clouding his mind. I realised, there was only me, in his eyes, nothing else. I realised I never had the occasion to look into his eyes like this. It was the first time we talked at great lengths and somehow we were synchronising.
“Would you want to work in a shop?” I asked.
“I was wondering what it would be like, but I would be very picky about that kind of stuff, like finding the perfect place in the system. I would want a shop that really fitted my presence. I don’t know. Maybe that’s not how people are supposed to seek work. But that’s how I felt like doing it.” Bensimon said.
That was the end of the conversation. I marched ahead. And he followed me behind. The shades of the trees scattered on us.
ns216.73.217.20da2
and then Add to home screen.