twenty-five
25. (10/8/2009)
phantom limb.
Two civil war renactors.
One is missing his right arm.
A: do you ever.
B: God, all the time.
A: Really?
B: Yeah. I mean. Look at me.
A: But what is…
B: It’s like walking up the stairs at night and you think there’s another step, but there isn’t.
A: Wow!
B: It’s like, getting a molar pulled, and then constantly sticking your tongue in the hole, or having to dig the bit of Mac and Cheese out of it.
A: Yuck!
B: It’s like finding a really rare coin you’ve been looking for your entire life and then realizing that this coin, the coin you’ve wanted all this time, the coin you’ve pined after and taken for granted as this holy grail, it’s like realizing that that coin is just a coin.
A: Unfortunate!
B: You know what it’s like…
A: What?
B: It’s like waking up in the middle of a wet dream.
It’s like that taste you get on your tongue… tingly… just before you throw up.
It’s like a drawing you find in your personal records, ink on a yellowed piece of paper, and you have no recollection of drawing it, but you’ve signed your name.
It’s like a ballet for one person.
A: CONFUSING!
I don’t think I’d be able to deal with any of that!
B: It’s hard.
B removes his glasses. He holds them up to the light in his one good arm.
B: I need new glasses, but if I squint, I can see the lines forming around your eyes when your about to smile.
A: What type of glasses do you need?
B: Excuse me?
A: Reading?
Near-sighted.
Far-sighted.
Crystal stemware?
B: These are for far-sighted.
Which means I can’t see things close up.
Or is it vice versa.
Is it vice versa?
Or visa versa.
Either way,
I’m not sure which way it goes either way.
But one way or another,
I need new glasses.
A: Sure.
Sure.
…
another curious thing is how many different religions there are.
B: Really?
How many?
A: And languages.
B: Do the two go together?
A: I’m sure they do somehow.
B: Yeah.
Everything goes together somehow.
A: Did they ever find it?
B: The arm?
A: Yeah!
B: No.
I mean.
Yeha,
But it was blown off my body.
That’s the price you pay, I guess.
A: Can I touch the wound?
B: I’m sure it’ll get infected if you do.
A: My hands are plenty clean.
B: I’m sure it’ll get infected if I let you touch it.
A: Will not!
B: WiIl too.
A: Will not!
B: Will, too!
Which is besides the point, because why do you want to touch it.
That’s gross.
A: Highway hypnosis.
B: What?
A: That’s why I want to touch it.
B: I think you don’t know what that means.
A: Let’s leave the thinking I know or don’t know what something means to me.
B: I don’t think you understand that saying, neither.
A: HA!
B: What?
A: You used the word neither wrong.
B: Okay, well you got me on one now.
A: yes I do.
I have you on one now.
B: Okay.
A: Okay.
B: You know something.
A: Many things.
B: Well you wanna hear what I was gonna say.
A: Yeah.
Sure.
B: War is hell.
End.
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