Conditional Reality

When I was a kid I knew a neighborhood alcoholic. He attended AA meetings and once discovered Christ and another time spoke ominously about a drug he was on that would kill him if had a single drop of booze. I was too young to understand, but I remember his basement garden where he had banks of fluorescent lights suspended over hundreds of plants: herbs, flowers, succulents. Most days he spent hours in his artificial jungle tending to soil and seed. I’d sit with him sometimes, shielding my eyes from the glare, watching him drink in the damp life-stained air.