o w e n k a e l i n |
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Three Tales of Invasion |
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Me When I’m Waterlogged
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It rose It rose up quickly, and was soon familiar with much of my legs, the water introducing itself to me without intelligence, and selfishly. I know that to the water my body was just another stack of capillaries . . . but I won’t excuse the water for this. It should suffer for what it does to me! We should be at war, the water and I, except that I’ve no weapons to fight it with, nor feet for the terrain. If at war, we’d be fighting one another on severed battlefields... and already the water seems to know the one that it’s on; it learns me quickly as it explores; it’s efficient this way. I cannot fight it. The problem is that I do not understand the water. The water understands me, inasmuch as my image—and in fact anything at all used to describe me—describes an end for its own goals. Perhaps this is my problem: I do not want the water. The water wants me, and this is how it wins. I do not want the water, and so I cannot win. The water creeps higher. Soon i’ll be completely within its grips. I’m afraid. O, how to fight? I cry instead. |
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Why People Stick Their Face into My Face |
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It was It was very late in the evening when the envelope broke. I did not want his face where it was! Why do people stick their face so close to my own face? They insist on it, as if my face were some sort of comforting device, a sofa for their expressions. I’m not your sofa! I shouted. He stared into my eyes; why was he so comfortable with me? As if he were a girl, to approach me this way, as if I were one, to receive him this way? But his comfort proved itself also an effective defiance: You’re crazy, man, he observed. You’re the one who’s crazy, getting into my face like this! I returned, My face isn’t here to put your face into! We’re not that familiar! He heard this and blinked. I went on, feverishly: It’s called personal space, alright? It’s called... it means you’re not supposed to come in that close to me, you’re invading ! You’re invading! I’m not your sofa! My face is not a place for you to put your own face! I was ranting. Instead of defending himself he walked away, shaking his head, down the street. I heard him repeat: You’re crazy, man. The city was dark and gentle. It welcomed the man warmly into its folds. |
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Why do Why do they do it, this thing, like this: with their hands? They let these hands just wander through the air like improper extensions of their brain, as if newly heightened dukes they were, in search of a receptive throne. The problem makes me think in places I shouldn’t be thinking in. No, I conclude, they’re not dukes, these hands, for they’re subservient, they’re not nobles. No, yes: they act like they represent a person, these hands, like they’re Secretaries of somebody’s noteworthy State. These Secretaries never wander for long, they always settle on something, and too often that settling place happens to be my arm. It’s more than just a settling; no, it’s nothing at all like a simple placement of a palm or two. These people and their impatient Secretaries seem to feel it necessary to conduct their operation in the most timidly irritating manner possible. How can a person stand it? They do it with fingertips. And their fingertips possess powerful magic, their energies penetrate my flesh and enter my veins. They inject terrible agents into my sensitive veins. They provide me with emissaries who can and will efficiently exasperate every part of my wretched body, from my hair down to my heels and then back on up to settle in my brain, where they quickly construct their strategic offices. They collect there with terrible volume. When I think about it: honestly, I think that they mostly get drunk up there, in their strategy quarters, considering the way they go on with things, shouting and laughing, randomly change their places and falling into things. I feel it all. Strategic they aren’t, but they don’t need strategy when they build themselves up in such numbers. Even after I’ve withdrawn my arm from the person’s fingers, those drunken emissaries are still there, poking about, ever vigilant, under my skin. If only I could call on my antibodies to fight them back. I can imagine the knocks on the doors: Hey, in there: We’re the Antibodies! And the fear in the Secretaries! The Secretaries would run away as quickly as they could work their legs... but my antibodies wouldn’t recognize the Secretaries as a threat... they wouldn’t even recognize their existence. Consult the Cerebellum, they’d say. They’re still there, in my arm, right under my skin... these Secretaries. I can’t get rid of them. I rub and I rub... |
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OWEN KAELIN currently lives in the Greater Boston area, and runs a literary website called the Gone Lawn Excavation Project. |
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