The Hands

My name is Compri.

Understood, in one way, and misunderstood, in another way.

I am always, always misunderstood. I cannot make myself understood. I understand very little of everything that surrounds me, that fills me, and threatens to become me or destroy me.

Often.

Often, I get scared of the world I live in. Is it just I who occupy this world, instead of that world? No one seems to be in this world, in which I find myself.

I am all alone.

Not, not I.

Not if anything was anything but I.

I am not alone because I am not here. Not even here.

If you touch me, you will touch my cheek, but not me. Because I'm not here. Not really.

You can find me swimming with the waves in some strange patch of ocean that stretches, rather furtively, across the palm of your left hand. Your right hand. Your right and left hands.

The Carrot

Marie had said, "There is no meaning."

She had said, "There is no meaning." Then she had added, hastily, "There has never been any meaning."

Poggy, the silly two year-old going on three, had asked, "Is meaning delicious?"

"Poggy dear," Marie had replied, "Poggy dear, no one knows. No one has eaten it."

Poggy had begun to fidget and had sung, "I'm eating, I'm eating, I'm eating it!"

Father had stood up from his chair and said, "What does it mean?"

Mother had ignored Father, also stood up, and had said to Poggy, "Don't eat meaning, please."

Everyone, not just Father and Mother, but everyone, had stood up and said, "Poggy, please don't eat meaning. Meaning is not delicious. Meaning is bad for you."

Poggy had cried. Cried, unable to bear the burden of the word "bad." Bad? Her cheeks had turned bright purple, too bright for anyone to see.

"Oh, it means nothing," Todd had jumped in. We had not ever known who Todd was. But Todd was the one who had said it.

The family had begun to eat their dinner when the air yelled, "What is nothing?" The air reverberated , for a while, with the question it had yelled. How, I do not know, I had not known.

"Nothing," Poggy had echoed the air.

The air had echoed Poggy, "Nothing."

Had air been full of something, or was it emptiness that we had had no choice but to breathe in, for months on end, for our own survival?

The family's dinner was all steaming and smelled too good. Everyone was too happy, even every thing. Except for one carrot. The carrot had said, "Nothing is meaning."

I had wanted to be that carrot, until it was eaten, swallowed, and turned into mush.

"I can't do it, Todd, I can't do it," I kept on telling this Todd, whom I had never seen or met.