“Please do not write on this wall!”

A conversation among the inscriptions scribbled amid the doodles on the ochre walls of the Georgian restaurant Pomegranate — layer upon layer, the ink fading like echoes, dim voices from the forgotten past. Remember QAnon and “Where we go one we go all”? Already, the Trump in “Trump 2024” has been crossed out and replaced with “Kanye.” Perhaps “Invest in Bitcoin!” will join them soon.

Most common are the simplest sort of declarations: identity, relation, and presence. “My name is Jeff.” “Allison + Emil = Baby Eva — forever love.” “Supper Club 2014.” This last gives rise to argument: “Our supper club is better than yours!” Both are likely better off than “Alex, by himself,” especially since “He who eats alone chokes alone.” Maybe Alex also wrote the plaintive “Tinder me!” or the even more plaintive “Remember me!” Perhaps he should meet the author of “Where can I find a good Russian man that cooks?” A sensible question, since this is a Russian restaurant. A reminder of this: “I eat Georgian. I go rule world. I come back. I eat more Georgian.” And drink: “In Russia, vodka drinks you!” Drink gives rise to joyous declarations: “Wine, women, freedom!” But also melancholy. “I need 4 ply when I cry.” “Birthday dreams are fun, unless we have no goods to trade.”

Wisdom: let us attend.

Ah, dreams. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” As as you go, you may be encouraged by Coelho’s promise that “When a person really desires something, the universe conspires to help that person.” Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago may declare, “I must break you,” but recall the line of Maximus in Gladiator: “What the Euphrats do in a lifetime will echo in eternity!” (Well, something like that.) But then again, set against that defiant cry, we read: “There comes a time when you look into the mirror and realize that what you see is all you will ever be, and then you accept it or kill yourself.”

A possible aid in acceptance: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Besides, “We’ve come too far to give up who we are,” and “You are perfect the way you are.” Well, maybe. But if that’s so, what to make of this? “Be brave, take risks. Nothing can substitute for experience.” Or the unrealized ambition of “I’m gonna be a famous athlete”? Or these confessions of cowardice? The first is concrete: “What would I do if I was brave? I would travel to Vietnam, meet the love of my life, marry…” The second is abstract: “1. Make eye contact. 2. Ask her exactly what [you want]. 3. Run away.” Instead of self-soothing talk, better perhaps to acknowledge that “Success is rented, due day, everyday.” The best we can hope for is “Fair winds and following seas.”

A joker has written, “Please do not write on this wall!” Should you ignore him, a piece of advice: “’Don’t tell me the moon is shiny, show me the glint of light on a piece of broken glass.’ – Anton Chekhov, quoted by Roxanna, 2013.”