Dog’s Tail

My mother died in 2000 after she learned that all
the clocks and calendars had changed, and
possibly after she heard about something called
“the millennium”. But she, who was illiterate and
who did not need to handle complex numbers,
knew, perhaps because she was preparing to
depart, that the world she left behind would not
be any different with a change of clocks and
calendars. Her guide in this regard was her
favourite Bedouin proverb. In this story, a dog’s
tail is placed in a mould to straighten it and it
emerges as crooked as it had ever been when it is
pulled out forty years later – a parable, which it so
happens, perfectly encapsulated my mother’s
opinion of me.