A Boy Gone South
by Nathaniel Trost
Guilt and shame led to a little pond filled with rain water. Not so little as to be uninteresting. Two alligators shared regency over every ounce. Theirs was a rule by neglect and many outsiders were allowed to inhabit the pond without passport or visa. Local pets, unwanted by owners too weak to keep or kill them, turtles more numerous than might be thought proper, especially due to their unquenchable lust for each other, which manifested itself in large continuous mid-pond orgies. These animals kept to their own code of inclusion and isolation. The pond had no streams that led to it, and it led nowhere. Rain and the occasional dumped pet were the only additions to this habitat.
Its controllable petiteness made this pond the perfect window into the natural world for people wanting to connect with a more authentic earth. Thus, it was surrounded by cement and two decks were placed in it for those wishing to view more closely the things of the earth.
He walked around the pond on the cement and dangled his head over the side of the dock. Two eyes stared into water that looked back at him with many more.
The usually passive alligator Aidia promptly swam to the surface and bit off his nose. “Why?” but the answer was clear. His head was not his to put where he had put it and it was not his choice to lose it or keep it. It was not even his nose. He was still him without it and what else could be wanted from the nose but a sense of self. If it were unnecessary for that, why bother with it. Aidia on the other hand could use a nose. His was little more than two slits above his mouth. Or maybe Aidia’s mouth was nothing more that a long slit below his nose. In any case, it was new. Not having a nose. Something to remember when he was older. A story to tell, an adventure to define him. But no, that was not Aidia’s way. This was the result of love. Aidia had no nose projecting out of his face, and so saw it as dangerous. Aidia felt an all encompassing love that flowed out of him with all the generosity and kindness of a truly great soul.
In all honesty, he didn’t know how to use his nose either. It ran, smelled, poked, bled, and broke all without reason or permission. To make a break with it, that would be best.
He thanked Aidia though bubbles of blood and began to get up. Get up, lying down, why bother? What difference was it to move somewhere else. To will himself to action. Easy enough, but why? Moving from here to there, all to be somewhere so as to move somewhere else. He slunk back down. Besides, the blood was attracting all sorts of new animals to his part of the pond.
His part? Yes, losing a nose to it gave him some ownership over it. He had sacrificed to it, he had mixed his blood with the water and now he was a part of it. Aidia had ripped it off. Torn from him something of his and made it foreign. He bled from above into a similarly disparate body. No, he had done it. Let it be done No he did not, that would mean… No better blame it on Aidia.
All the same, better to stay. To belong to where your blood is shed than to move on to some foreign ground. You can’t spread yourself too thin. Who are you if you live in both a tree and a pond. Do you not live in yourself? Well, yes, but no. Not the nose at least. One may live anywhere else, but it is now clear that one does not live in ones nose. Otherwise I would not be me now. In myself but I hope not just there. How anywhere else? I am Aidia, I am those who think of me, I am this pond. But you weren’t in your nose. Well something of me was. And your blood? That is you too? Yes, and now that is in the pond. And the thoughts of others? They make you you? The hate of others? Well that’s all misunderstanding. The love of others? Yes, to the extent that it is love well placed. So you do not control who you are? It’s all up to fate. I just try not to spread myself too thin.
Gretchen rests on the bank. Hungry and hot she looks for food through the haze of her warmed blood Slowly making her way along the dock, she walks across his shoe. Gretchen takes up the lace in her mouth but finds it hard and unwormlike. A thumb. Better. Thick and conceited. It looks across at its longer siblings with contempt while reveling in its exclusivity. No longer. It shares Gretchen’s stomach with little fish, bits of weed and water. Soon the thumb will reach the democracy of chyme, and from there, things only get worse for its sense of self. Gretchen enjoys it so much she takes a few more and invites her siblings to come nibble off the rest.
No more will those hands write away problems. No more can they caress worries and pains into submission. They can not change the course of an argument. They can not play or pleasure. No more can they rip at hair to distract from pain, no longer can they hide a shame filled face from itself and the world.
I am still me. I have all the selfness that filled me as a fully fingered person. I had no control over this, it happened, but I am still me. That’s what matters. I have not lost my identity. Sure I’m different now. I won’t be able to brush my teeth well until I get a bit more dexterous with my feet. I won’t be able to retie that shoelace, but what does that matter?
What does that matter? Knotted, frayed, confused, tangled, the shoe is worthy of better. A lace is more than a string, it is a contract. It unifies two souls in the bond of holy… A shoe is worth more than that. It is not to be disrespected as some utilitarian object of necessity. It protects you from your own weakness. It ennobles you. 2,200 miles from start to finish. Together. Hopes dreams, woven together, sweating and rubbing on one another. Bruising, deforming, hurting, lying, cursing, crippling each other. Yes, the trip north would do you good, but you have gone south, and it is your fault.
Blood dripping into the water, noseless, fingerless. Shoe untied. He lashed out. Grabbed at Aidia. Fingerless fists splashing, smacking, hurting. Aidia was small and helpless. He asked to be killed. It was easy, and it proved something. Aidia was himself. He knew himself and his domain. He swam with intention. Ate with conviction. His actions were premeditated. They were his own. What he looked at was the object of his thoughts, what he acted upon the stuff of his desire. He acted not to forge himself out of life, but to imprint himself on it He was no more.
Why did you kill Aidia? It wasn’t my idea, it just happened. How? Well some turtles bit my fingers off and my shoe is untiled. It wasn’t my idea, it just came out of me. Where from? Well, from some primeval cesspool of destructive desire. It’s just programed into me. It’s something I have to explore. Its part of my humanity. Why is that. Well it’s part of what it means to be human right? To strive, to seek, and not to yield. I was just exploring my humanity. And why do you need to do that? Well what would any of us be without our humanity? Who would any of us be? How am I supposed to find myself without experiencing the gamut of human experience? So you feel lost? Well I feel lost now, before I just felt hungry. I guess I was trying to fulfill a hunger, but now I’m not quite sure where I am in all this. I liked Aidia, he had a nice tail, he was kind, he cared for me.
I lay in the shallows. Corps resting beneath me and keeping me on the surface. It will not stay with me. It is not mine any more. At death do us part, and now he belongs to himself, and, knowing himself, he will go where he wants, to the earth. I did that. I lost myself to him and killed it out of the both of us. Not fate Not human nature. I am no more and he will only hate me for all I have done. No, it couldn’t have been me. Why would I do that? Why would I kill? Why would I let my fingers be taken one by one? Why didn’t I just tie my shoe? Could I really have been in control of all of this?
You did not make the river, but you controlled the current. Fate is just time, circumstance and your own intervention. Mixed into an innocuous and passive poison. It is not narcissism that makes one claim their actions for ones own, it is will.
He looked at his reflection in the pond. His hair had fallen out. His eyes bulged. His shoulders had compressed and moved up filling out his neck into one continuous line from his cheeks to his chest. Without a nose, he was flat faced and fishlike.
Where am I? I am still I, right? It looks the same. I. I look more like it now. Long and streamline. But where did he go? I tried to find myself and now look. He? I? Still here. Inescapably here. I will never escape myself. Always haunted by the I, the he that I have been. Never having to miss what was because I cary it in me. Never getting to forget it because it is me. I am no searcher for myself. I am a dog chasing its own tail who has planted himself firmly in his own ass. I suppose I really do have a tail now don’t I? Yes. I’ll move into deeper water, I can breath better there. I move. I know why I move and I do it under my own volition. I know what water I displace. I saw it coming. I know what I have left behind. I did that too. Nothing to do about it now, but yes, I did it. Nothing to do about it? End it? No, two corpses would do no good for this pond. Rather morbid isn’t it all? I think my age entitles me to a bit of angst and drama. Inescapably, something had changed. There would be no going back to land. A new environment had been wandered into. Was walked into. I walked into it.
But fate is still here! Some things are beyond control right? We can’t control all of life and we can only deal with what is practical to deal with. We can only deal with what we have. Everything beyond our reach can do with us what it will Human nature, youth, immaturity, stupidity, 700.5 miles. These are all forces beyond our control. We must bend to their commands and accept that life is restricted by their impositions.
No. All escapes. I am responsible. Life does not present things, we present ourselves to life. Life is no thing, it is many things. All things. Life is the inescapable moment, and all that comes before and after, but action is my own. I do it. Not my stupidity, not my ignorance, not my confusion. When I was a toddler, I had imaginary friends. They were called my babies. Just because they have changed their names does not make them any less imaginary. I need not do anything but be me. I am me. I did that. And now I swim through the pond. I no longer have legs. I do not love, breath. I try not to think about going north because there are no paths out of the pond. I am myself, but not who I was.
by Nathaniel Trost
Guilt and shame led to a little pond filled with rain water. Not so little as to be uninteresting. Two alligators shared regency over every ounce. Theirs was a rule by neglect and many outsiders were allowed to inhabit the pond without passport or visa. Local pets, unwanted by owners too weak to keep or kill them, turtles more numerous than might be thought proper, especially due to their unquenchable lust for each other, which manifested itself in large continuous mid-pond orgies. These animals kept to their own code of inclusion and isolation. The pond had no streams that led to it, and it led nowhere. Rain and the occasional dumped pet were the only additions to this habitat.
Its controllable petiteness made this pond the perfect window into the natural world for people wanting to connect with a more authentic earth. Thus, it was surrounded by cement and two decks were placed in it for those wishing to view more closely the things of the earth.
He walked around the pond on the cement and dangled his head over the side of the dock. Two eyes stared into water that looked back at him with many more.
The usually passive alligator Aidia promptly swam to the surface and bit off his nose. “Why?” but the answer was clear. His head was not his to put where he had put it and it was not his choice to lose it or keep it. It was not even his nose. He was still him without it and what else could be wanted from the nose but a sense of self. If it were unnecessary for that, why bother with it. Aidia on the other hand could use a nose. His was little more than two slits above his mouth. Or maybe Aidia’s mouth was nothing more that a long slit below his nose. In any case, it was new. Not having a nose. Something to remember when he was older. A story to tell, an adventure to define him. But no, that was not Aidia’s way. This was the result of love. Aidia had no nose projecting out of his face, and so saw it as dangerous. Aidia felt an all encompassing love that flowed out of him with all the generosity and kindness of a truly great soul.
In all honesty, he didn’t know how to use his nose either. It ran, smelled, poked, bled, and broke all without reason or permission. To make a break with it, that would be best.
He thanked Aidia though bubbles of blood and began to get up. Get up, lying down, why bother? What difference was it to move somewhere else. To will himself to action. Easy enough, but why? Moving from here to there, all to be somewhere so as to move somewhere else. He slunk back down. Besides, the blood was attracting all sorts of new animals to his part of the pond.
His part? Yes, losing a nose to it gave him some ownership over it. He had sacrificed to it, he had mixed his blood with the water and now he was a part of it. Aidia had ripped it off. Torn from him something of his and made it foreign. He bled from above into a similarly disparate body. No, he had done it. Let it be done No he did not, that would mean… No better blame it on Aidia.
All the same, better to stay. To belong to where your blood is shed than to move on to some foreign ground. You can’t spread yourself too thin. Who are you if you live in both a tree and a pond. Do you not live in yourself? Well, yes, but no. Not the nose at least. One may live anywhere else, but it is now clear that one does not live in ones nose. Otherwise I would not be me now. In myself but I hope not just there. How anywhere else? I am Aidia, I am those who think of me, I am this pond. But you weren’t in your nose. Well something of me was. And your blood? That is you too? Yes, and now that is in the pond. And the thoughts of others? They make you you? The hate of others? Well that’s all misunderstanding. The love of others? Yes, to the extent that it is love well placed. So you do not control who you are? It’s all up to fate. I just try not to spread myself too thin.
Gretchen rests on the bank. Hungry and hot she looks for food through the haze of her warmed blood Slowly making her way along the dock, she walks across his shoe. Gretchen takes up the lace in her mouth but finds it hard and unwormlike. A thumb. Better. Thick and conceited. It looks across at its longer siblings with contempt while reveling in its exclusivity. No longer. It shares Gretchen’s stomach with little fish, bits of weed and water. Soon the thumb will reach the democracy of chyme, and from there, things only get worse for its sense of self. Gretchen enjoys it so much she takes a few more and invites her siblings to come nibble off the rest.
No more will those hands write away problems. No more can they caress worries and pains into submission. They can not change the course of an argument. They can not play or pleasure. No more can they rip at hair to distract from pain, no longer can they hide a shame filled face from itself and the world.
I am still me. I have all the selfness that filled me as a fully fingered person. I had no control over this, it happened, but I am still me. That’s what matters. I have not lost my identity. Sure I’m different now. I won’t be able to brush my teeth well until I get a bit more dexterous with my feet. I won’t be able to retie that shoelace, but what does that matter?
What does that matter? Knotted, frayed, confused, tangled, the shoe is worthy of better. A lace is more than a string, it is a contract. It unifies two souls in the bond of holy… A shoe is worth more than that. It is not to be disrespected as some utilitarian object of necessity. It protects you from your own weakness. It ennobles you. 2,200 miles from start to finish. Together. Hopes dreams, woven together, sweating and rubbing on one another. Bruising, deforming, hurting, lying, cursing, crippling each other. Yes, the trip north would do you good, but you have gone south, and it is your fault.
Blood dripping into the water, noseless, fingerless. Shoe untied. He lashed out. Grabbed at Aidia. Fingerless fists splashing, smacking, hurting. Aidia was small and helpless. He asked to be killed. It was easy, and it proved something. Aidia was himself. He knew himself and his domain. He swam with intention. Ate with conviction. His actions were premeditated. They were his own. What he looked at was the object of his thoughts, what he acted upon the stuff of his desire. He acted not to forge himself out of life, but to imprint himself on it He was no more.
Why did you kill Aidia? It wasn’t my idea, it just happened. How? Well some turtles bit my fingers off and my shoe is untiled. It wasn’t my idea, it just came out of me. Where from? Well, from some primeval cesspool of destructive desire. It’s just programed into me. It’s something I have to explore. Its part of my humanity. Why is that. Well it’s part of what it means to be human right? To strive, to seek, and not to yield. I was just exploring my humanity. And why do you need to do that? Well what would any of us be without our humanity? Who would any of us be? How am I supposed to find myself without experiencing the gamut of human experience? So you feel lost? Well I feel lost now, before I just felt hungry. I guess I was trying to fulfill a hunger, but now I’m not quite sure where I am in all this. I liked Aidia, he had a nice tail, he was kind, he cared for me.
I lay in the shallows. Corps resting beneath me and keeping me on the surface. It will not stay with me. It is not mine any more. At death do us part, and now he belongs to himself, and, knowing himself, he will go where he wants, to the earth. I did that. I lost myself to him and killed it out of the both of us. Not fate Not human nature. I am no more and he will only hate me for all I have done. No, it couldn’t have been me. Why would I do that? Why would I kill? Why would I let my fingers be taken one by one? Why didn’t I just tie my shoe? Could I really have been in control of all of this?
You did not make the river, but you controlled the current. Fate is just time, circumstance and your own intervention. Mixed into an innocuous and passive poison. It is not narcissism that makes one claim their actions for ones own, it is will.
He looked at his reflection in the pond. His hair had fallen out. His eyes bulged. His shoulders had compressed and moved up filling out his neck into one continuous line from his cheeks to his chest. Without a nose, he was flat faced and fishlike.
Where am I? I am still I, right? It looks the same. I. I look more like it now. Long and streamline. But where did he go? I tried to find myself and now look. He? I? Still here. Inescapably here. I will never escape myself. Always haunted by the I, the he that I have been. Never having to miss what was because I cary it in me. Never getting to forget it because it is me. I am no searcher for myself. I am a dog chasing its own tail who has planted himself firmly in his own ass. I suppose I really do have a tail now don’t I? Yes. I’ll move into deeper water, I can breath better there. I move. I know why I move and I do it under my own volition. I know what water I displace. I saw it coming. I know what I have left behind. I did that too. Nothing to do about it now, but yes, I did it. Nothing to do about it? End it? No, two corpses would do no good for this pond. Rather morbid isn’t it all? I think my age entitles me to a bit of angst and drama. Inescapably, something had changed. There would be no going back to land. A new environment had been wandered into. Was walked into. I walked into it.
But fate is still here! Some things are beyond control right? We can’t control all of life and we can only deal with what is practical to deal with. We can only deal with what we have. Everything beyond our reach can do with us what it will Human nature, youth, immaturity, stupidity, 700.5 miles. These are all forces beyond our control. We must bend to their commands and accept that life is restricted by their impositions.
No. All escapes. I am responsible. Life does not present things, we present ourselves to life. Life is no thing, it is many things. All things. Life is the inescapable moment, and all that comes before and after, but action is my own. I do it. Not my stupidity, not my ignorance, not my confusion. When I was a toddler, I had imaginary friends. They were called my babies. Just because they have changed their names does not make them any less imaginary. I need not do anything but be me. I am me. I did that. And now I swim through the pond. I no longer have legs. I do not love, breath. I try not to think about going north because there are no paths out of the pond. I am myself, but not who I was.