Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid

down into a green valley and the green valley was filled with sheep and the sheep had horns and the horns were good and the horns were only good. And Mr. Shoul could see, in his mind’s eye (and that would be his memory), himself as a boy walking over hills and valleys (but he never did any such thing as walk a great distance) and at the top of the hills he could reach up and purse his lips and kiss the sky and then walk down into the valleys and the valleys eventually ran into the sea and the sea was not dead, it was only so very still and did not move up and down with waves and wavelets, and when he reached the foot of the valley and was faced with the still sea, just a wave of his hand could make a series of beautiful wavelets all arranged across the stilled waters of the stilled sea (and this too was his memory); and no fish lived beneath and so could not pierce the surface of this stilled sea and no birds hovered just above the surface of this stilled sea. And Mr. Shoul could see, in his mind’s eye, himself as a child (he was a little boy) in trousers with short legs and then trousers with long legs, wearing shirts with short sleeves and then shirts
with long sleeves; and his skin was the color of the barren hills before they were forced to support olive trees and grapevines, and his arms were arm’s length and his legs were just so and his hair was curled naturally.
    And not going backward at all, his past not unrolling behind him and with an inward turn of his head can he view it, not that way, not that way at all, but this way, through a sharp glint of light darting out of the corner of one eye (it would be a memory, it would be memory): his father, a thick bolt of flesh himself, surrounded by thick bolts of cloth, silk it was, silk from fabled places (China it was, but China was so far away it seemed a place of many places) and silk of such silkiness that it could only be likened to the petals of roses; and roses now, his mother liked roses, they came sometimes from Damascus, they came all the time from Damascus (but how could that be?), and her arms were plump and dimpled near the elbows and her legs were plump and dimpled near the back of her knees and her cheeks were plump and short hairs grew thickly and formed half a circle just above her eyes and she ate dates and figs which were often piled up in a glass bowl made of pure crystal and placed right in front of her and she looked out of windows and laughed at nothing (but how could he know that, Mr. Shoul then was only a child) and got tangled up in cross words—words that did not dwell in the land
of anger, only words that expressed the luxury that is irritation—words that were not really meant for her and got tangled up in malicious acts that were not really directed at her, and all sorts of ancient hatreds that had begun before anyone could even imagine a time that would include her. “Mr. Shoul,” said Mr. Potter, but Mr. Shoul could not hear him at all for in his mind’s eye he could see his mother and she died while going toward Damascus, not on the road to Damascus itself, just going toward Damascus, perhaps for roses, perhaps for something else, and he could almost hear the last words she said to him before she left, he could almost hear them, but then, not really, not really at all, for he was in his mind’s eye and the mind’s eye is the land of the almost, the geography of the mind’s eye is the almost, its atmosphere is made of the elements, the almost, the as if, the like, the in the vicinity of, the almost, its reality: the almost!
    And Mr. Shoul’s father continued in his way after his wife died; after his wife died he continued to mingle with the thick bolts of silk that could be likened only to the petals of roses, and the piles of carpets woven from fibers that had been removed from the backs of animals and then dyed with dyes that were so precious and to look at each carpet was to look at some