There is no instruction manual for our bodies

... We have this body of ours, a troublesome piece of luggage, we don’t really know anything about it and we need all sorts of tools to find out about its most natural processes. Isn’t it scandalous that the last time a doctor wanted to check what was happening in my stomach he made me have a gastroscopy? I had to swallow a thick tube, and it took a camera to reveal the inside of my stomach to us. The only coarse and primitive tool gifted us for consolation is pain. The angels, if they really do exist, must be splitting their sides laughing at us. Fancy being given a body and not knowing anything about it. There’s no instruction manual.

Unfortunately, the mistake was made at the very start, as were other errors too...

Olga Tokarczuk. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.”