Land's End, looking down (The Day of the Locust) | opposing sides

Nathanael West: from The Day of the Locust   

Although Homer had nothing to do but prepare his scanty meals, he was not
bored. Except for the Romola Martin incident and perhaps one or two other
widely spaced events, the forty years of his life had been entirely
without variety or excitement. As a bookkeeper, he had worked
mechanically, totaling figures and making entries with the same
impersonal detachment that he now opened cans of soup and made his bed.  

One day, while opening a can of salmon for lunch, his thumb received a
nasty cut. Although the wound must have hurt, the calm, slightly
querulous expression he usually wore did not change. The wounded hand
writhed about on the kitchen table until it was carried to the sink by
its mate and bathed tenderly in hot water.

When not keeping house, he sat in the back yard, called the patio by the
real estate agent, in an old broken deck chair. He went out to it
immediately after breakfast to bake himself in the sun. In one of the
closets he had found a tattered book and he held it in his lap without
looking at it.

There was a much better view to be had in any direction other than the
one he faced. By moving his chair in a quarter circle he could have seen
a large part of the canyon twisting down to the city below. He never
thought of making this shift. From where he sat, he saw the closed door
of the garage and a patch of its shabby, tarpaper roof. In the foreground
was a sooty, brick incinerator and a pile of rusty cans. A little to the
right of them were the remains of a cactus garden in which a few ragged,
tortured plants still survived.

One of these, a clump of thick, paddlelike blades, covered with ugly
needles, was in bloom. From the tip of several of its topmost blades
protruded a bright yellow flower, somewhat like a thistle blossom but
coarser. No matter how hard the wind blew, its petals never trembled. A
lizard lived in a hole near the base of this plant. It was about five
inches long and had a wedge-shaped head from which darted a fine, forked
tongue. It earned a hard living catching the flies that strayed over to
the cactus from the pile of cans.

The lizard was self-conscious and irritable, and Homer found it very
amusing to watch. Whenever one of its elaborate stalks were foiled, it
would shift about uneasily on its short legs and puff out its throat. Its
coloring matched the cactus perfectly, but when it moved over to the cans
where the flies were thick, it stood out very plainly. It would sit on
the cactus by the hour without moving, then become impatient and start
for the cans. The flies would spot it immediately and after several
misses, it would sneak back sheepishly to its original post.

Homer was on the side of the flies. Whenever one of them, swinging too
widely, would pass the cactus, he prayed silently for it to keep on going
or turn back. If it lighted, he watched the lizard begin its stalk and
held his breath until it had killed, hoping all the while that something
would warn the fly. But no matter how much he wanted the fly to escape,
he never thought of interfering, and was careful not to budge or make the
slightest noise. Occasionally the lizard would miscalculate. When that
happened Homer would laugh happily.

Between the sun, the lizard and the house, he was fairly well occupied.
But whether he was happy or not it is hard to say. Probably he was
neither, just as a plant is neither. He had memories to disturb him and a
plant hasn't, but after the first bad night his memories were quiet.