King of the miniature garden
Behind a thicket of Japanese Knotweed bushes growing in clusters on the bank of a river, there it was. A box of madeleine pastries. Instead of a baked western pastry, it was a little Village in a box.
When George got home, he hid in his room without washing his hands, and his heart could not stop beating as he looked at the madeleine pastry box on his desk.
Fearfully lifting the lid of the box, George took another peek inside. There it was again, the little village. He was not mistaken. He grabbed the handle of his black-rimmed magnifying glass, winked awkwardly, and observed. If you look closely, you can see that even though they are the size of ants, they have distinctive facial features and different clothes. Little people built houses the size of sugar cubes, cultivated fields the size of gum wrappers, and lived there. The little village was there.
George became frightened and rushed to close the lid and put the box of madeleines in a drawer.
After opening the drawer and putting the box of madeleines on the desk, George slowly lifted the lid of the box and looked into it. There was the same little village as yesterday. Little people wielding even smaller hoes plowed fields the size of gum wrappers, and when the work was done, they went home to their sugar cube houses, where the family was busy with family gatherings.
George was crying.
He cried because he felt sorry for himself when he remembered. Tears were running down his cheeks and dripping down from his chin. The tears flowed so freely and unstoppably that the damp land eventually became a small puddle, which gradually expanded to become a pond. It was a very small pond, but large enough for small people to swim in.
George looked up, put the lid back on the box, and put the box of madeleines back in the drawer.
The next day, George was in a bad mood. It was not so much that he wanted to cry, but more that he was in a temperamental mood and wanted to take his anger out on things. He wanted to override his bad experience at the school with another stimulating experience.
George picked up a box of madeleines in a drawer and was about to put it on his desk. But in the process of doing so, he got the urge and, unable to control it with his rational mind, slammed the madeleine pastry box on the floor. There was quite a noise inside, but after a while he picked it up and put the box of madeleines back in the drawer.
Today, I was not in the mood to escape from reality by looking at the Village. I just wanted to get into bed and go to sleep as soon as possible.
George came home from school in a much better mood than yesterday, so he took out a box of madeleines from the drawer and put it on the desk instead of slamming it on the floor. He opened the lid of the box and let his eyes fall on the Madeleines, or as he chose to call this little world, the Village. George was speechless. The Village was a mess, as if it had suffered a disaster. Little people were repairing their little houses, and the flooded river, a pond formed by George’s tears, had finally turned into a river, flooding and salting the Village’s land. Crops would no longer be harvested. Little people stood around in front of their fields, some farmers cowering and weeping as they dredged up the soil. Cracks ran the length and breadth of the earth’s surface, remnants of the great earthquake. George knew it was all his fault. It was his fault for shedding tears and smashing the box. It was his fault that the Village had been ruined. I was seized with remorse, but as I watched the little people trying to get the Village back on its feet, my heart was strangely refreshed. It was his own fault that the Village was in such a mess. George put the lid back on the box and tucked the madeleine pastry box away in a drawer so as not to disturb the little people.
Wanting to know how quickly the recovery was progressing, George ran home, broke his mother’s orders, and holed himself up in his room without washing his hands or gargling, opened the drawer, and placed the box of madeleines on his desk.
He opened the lid of the box.
George’s eyes fluttered.
There was no Village. Instead, there was a town. The small houses had been transformed into small condominiums, apartment complexes. The little people had not been defeated by the disaster, but had developed the village and built the town. People who had once been self-sufficient in the fields became economically active in the Town through commerce, and trading became the center of their lives. Farmers changed jobs to become merchants, and merchants maintain the standard of living in Town. Levees were built to prevent the river from overflowing, buildings were constructed with strong frames to withstand earthquakes, and the little people created an environment that could withstand disasters.
George rubs his swollen right cheek and smiles. He saw courage and hope there. He saw that his problems were small and manageable. The box lid closed off his small world and brought him back to the small world of reality, and the hateful face of the person he should hate disappeared from his mind, and he became calm.
George smiled, “I think I’m going to have a good night’s sleep.
The various troubles that occur daily at the school are not on the same scale as those that occur in Madeleine’s world. George found that the troubles he got into were very trivial, yet far from hopeless. He thought, as he looked at the resilience of the little people living in Madeleine’s world. My problem is not a problem at all.
Opening the box of madeleines, George looked at their activities from the sky, far above the little people. The Town was developing further. It would be more aptly called the City. Compared to the Town, the City’s landscape was more refined, and the clothes worn by the little people were more sophisticated. Sophisticated values were the criteria for judging the City, and this was the common perception of the people living in the City. The little people are not on foot. Everyone drove their own cars on well-maintained highways to the city center, where skyscrapers lined the streets, fueling the city’s economy. The economy was not so much a business as an investment. The economy developed and flourished through investment. Everyone contributed money to develop the economy. Everyone wanted to live a luxurious life, and they did. George felt that despite the economic disparity between the large middle class, the very few upper class, and the very few lower class, the standard of living was affluent, if not wealthy. The standard of living, George felt, was affluent, if not wealthy, compared to the Village and Town.
George closed the lid of the box and put the box of madeleines in a drawer. A little too early, he crawled under the covers of his bed and closed his eyes. I was deep in thought about the richness of the little people’s lives.
Sometimes George wished he could escape from the hard days at the school. But in Madeleine’s world, it is a very small problem, and it is easy to solve. It is up to you. If he lives his life with strength, the trouble is not a trouble at all, but a very small problem that can be solved. It is not a big problem. You are just thinking too much. It is a small society. Narrow-minded people with narrow perspectives follow narrow rules in a narrow community, and they feel suffocated by the inevitable narrowness. The difficulty of living is an illusion created by such narrowness. It is not a reality with a solid mass. George strongly felt this way as he watched the lives of the little people living in Madeleine’s world. At least it seemed true to George. At least it seemed true to George.
George no longer cried, no longer felt frustrated. No more harm would come to the inhabitants of Madeleine’s world, harm that could cause floods, earthquakes, and disrupt the order of the world. The promised peace had come to Madeleine, and so it should have.
George opened the lid of the box and was astonished. For a moment, he froze holding the lid, unable to utter any words. It was just in the center of the box, a line dividing the box right in half, but it was more of a wall than a line, built at an equal height, it separated the land. A gate between the two lands was set up in the middle of it, and a small group of armed men were stationed at the border to guard it with strict vigilance. How this happened, George could not understand. But there were two countries engaged in a standoff, and the atmosphere was so thick that it made George feel nauseous. Conflict. Whatever the reason, the little people were glaring at each other, and if either side made a move, they were ready to fight to the bitter end. George could see that.
What should he do?
Should he turn away and gently close the lid of the box? Or should he join one side or the other and end the tension? It would be easy for George to get involved and influence Madeleine’s world. But Madeleine’s world is theirs to live in, and it is not for George, an outsider, to do anything on his own. Let’s wait and see, George thought.
He closed the lid of the box. Madeleine’s situation was unknown to George. In the drawer, in Madeleine’s pastry box, the tension between the little people continued, and George did not know when the thread would break. He is not all-powerful. He is not God. He did not create Madeleine. If anything, his position as an outsider king is an accurate description of his position. An outsider king looking at a box garden, that was George’s place.
When he woke up early in the morning because school was not in session, George opened a box of madeleines without washing his face. He put the lid of the box on the side of his bed and looked around to see what was going on. I don’t know what’s going on. But war had broken out, carnage was everywhere, crime was rampant, the city was in chaos, and its former prosperity seemed to have been a lie. George is saddened by the deaths of so many small people and the grief of their grieving families. At the border fence, the battle rages on and on, with armed men attacking and defending each other as if to say, “This wall is the reason why we can’t have this wall.
George thought about causing another major earthquake, but decided against it. I am not a god, but an imaginary king. I am a solitary king with no subjects to advise me, and it is wrong for me to make decisions on my own. George could do nothing. Time went on without his being able to do anything, and the disastrous war ended shortly after noon.
It was a good thing. There was devastation everywhere, but the fighting was over. It was good. The wall was torn down, the borders were gone. I don’t care who won or lost. George was relieved to know that the tragic carnage was over and the war was over.
After taking a bath, he opened the lid of the box to see how things were going. He intended to check on the progress of reconstruction. However, what George saw was not reconstruction, but a vacant lot. All that remained was a desolate and dreary land that had been thoroughly destroyed and reduced to ashes. There was no trace of the modernized culture. The people who once lived there are nowhere to be found. What has happened? George felt a shiver, not from the hot water, but from an inexpressible fear he had never experienced before. Vaguely looking out over the deserted land, his heart shrank.
Where did all the little people go? What had happened to them? No matter how much George tried to think, the deserted land would not tell him anything. There was nothing there anymore.
George came home from school at the beginning of the week with a melancholy feeling. He put the box of madeleines on his desk and opened the lid, just in case, although he thought he would not open it again yesterday.
There it was.
There was a scene that George had not expected.
It was not an arid land of endless desolation. It was a forested area with lush vegetation. If you looked closely, you could see a small lumberjack with an even smaller axe in his hand, chopping down trees and clearing the forest. Squinting more closely, I saw a sugar cube hut in a clearing in the forest, and a small farmer tilling a field the size of a gum wrapper.
They’re trying to develop the Village, George thought. They’re starting all over again from scratch, too. George felt like crying, but he didn’t. Because he didn’t know what to say if he cried and caused them trouble again.
George stands up and opens all the windows in the room. He takes a big breath in and a big breath out. Fresh air filled his lungs, and the melancholy he had been carrying was no longer anywhere to be found.
Behind him, the tiny sound of a small woodcutter swinging an even smaller axe and chopping down a small tree echoed softly, striking George’s light heart.
