the second note

Old Man Tem Tem liked to think of faith as a wild animal.

It reminded him of the young, thoughtless creature that had been skittering around the edges of his rice fields, scratching at the posts and devouring the bitter melons he'd spent all season planting. He could spend days trying to trap it, yet it was somehow always just out of reach.

For Tem Tem, faith was not a helpful thing. It did not help maintain the grounds. It did not help him get up with excitement for the morning, or help soothe him to sleep.

What it did was eat his crops, and poop the seeds out in disadvantageous places around his home. It kept him up with worry and kept him trudging through the hottest parts of the afternoon with a wary eye. It kept him on his toes.

And yet, without faith, he wouldn't have found the sudden burst of cucumbers sitting outside his door, growing impossibly and wildly and without any input from him whatsoever.

He had no use for the cucumbers, but he harvested them anyway, knowing the girls up the hill might enjoy them more than bitter melons.

Just last week, he spotted the creature up close, mere footsteps away, nosing its dark little nose into his tomatillos. It left black patches everywhere it crept. Tem Tem sighed and sat down to watch. It looked to be only a child, aimless and hungry. He pulled out one of his rice buns and motioned it closer.

Faith wasn't very useful to Tem Tem, but he didn't mind having it around.