A SILENT LANDSCAPE OF "GULL"

                "a thought once uttered is untrue..." 

                                                         F. I. Tyutchev

To Ancient Greeks, the word for "gull", meant "stupid" and "greedy".

λάρος [α^], ὁ,A. [select] gull, sea-mew Od.5.51, Arist.HA542b17, 593b3: hence, metaph., of greedy demagogues, as Cleon, "λ. κεχηνὼς ἐπὶ πέτρας δημηγορῶν" Ar.Eq.956; "Κλέωνα τὸν λ. δώρων ἑλόντες" Id.Nu.591, cf. Av.567, Matro Conv.9, Timocl.4.9; also of fools, Luc.Tim.12, Sch.Ar.Pl.913. Liddell and Scott's lexicon

THE LAKE   THE GULL  THE MAN

[...] a long time ago, in the very olden days, there was a lake, and that lake was, they said, the entrance to the Underworld. The god Hermes used to bring the dead to the shore, and deliver them to a boatman. Then the boatman would take them to the other side. To the Underworld. Of course, you had to pay the boatman to take you across. He wouldn't if you didn't. And then, they said, your soul would wander for eternity, in the middle of nowhere.

[...] it's just a gull. Beautiful bird, but only by the looks of it. It eats garbage all the time. That's how it lives. On garbage. Sometimes it eats birds too. It even catches other gulls, kills them and eats them. It's an insatiable bird. Beautiful outside and ugly inside. Just like humans. What do you think a man is? Just a gull. An insatiable gull, roaming around a lake, hoping to never have to get in the water and gathering all kinds of garbage to eat and survive.

[...] man is a strange case. A really strange one. He was born to always lack something. That's why he always wants, and wants, and wants - and eats everything around him, just because he wants it. Everything and everybody. And in the end, he eats himself too. Man will always lack something. And instead of finding a way to manage his desire, he lets that lack lead him to voracity. That's what lack creates in him: voracity. It makes him voracious. So he destroys everything around him.  

[...] it's such a pity we can't accept that only death can be voracious and greedy. Lost in our unrealised desires, we only think about them and nothing else. Just like voracious and ravenous gulls, we fly over the lake, indifferent, ridiculous and greedy, uttering our dissonant squawks, looking for the odd piece of garbage. We live as if our life was nothing but a dump of buried desires.