Thank you for listening

By Shaggy Trapolino

 

Oh, hello there. We don’t normally get to talk. Normally I just find myself living alone—if you can call what I do living—if loneliness is defined by conversation. But, while I have this chance, I think I’d like to verbalize a thing or two… okay, maybe more than a thing or two. Anyway, let me start:

First, I’d like to say, nice to meet you. Well, I’ve always known you, and you me, I think, but your knowledge of me is often sparse. You see, my purpose is to be. To thrive in the moments passing by. Memory and I can sometimes cause a lack of time spent well.

But honestly, bring pinches of my sister, sprinkle them as needed, then you will forget me as much as you'd like. Never will I need your remembrance, since I will steal it all the same.

Hence why your active listening to me now is such a treat. I mean a real treat. I mean like Halloween candy on October first until the end of January kinda treat. Please, I beg you to listen to me while I can talk, while it reaches your ears or eyes or however you receive words.

The first thing I’d like to discuss is our common ground.

You and I can see it. We see everything. Your vision may be limited, your ears may be faulty. Maybe age has taken me away from you, bit by bit, year by year. But I’m still there, in some way. You may feel as though your body has forgotten me, but in the end, some piece of me remains in you.

Inside you is a particular organ. One that the Egyptians so desperately wanted to pluck from their own pretty little, golden-crowned heads an—

Oh, I guess I’ve already started talking about the second thing. Or was it the third. My sister never taught me to count. We have never been too close… until we are… then aren’t again…

Whatever, let’s continue.

Outside this pinkish organ’s container, smoothness is seen as beauty. Quite simplistic, if you ask me. Inside this container, the more grooves and ugly uniqueness’s make it all the more wonderful. I mean, I guess that’s just my opinion, because if it has all those slimy little folds, it can hold more. More fluids, sure, but more than that, it can hold those juicy, juicy thoughts.

I think I’m hungry… or thirsty… or both…

Hunger aside, you, more than I, can think, and what are thoughts but words or ideas recorded then occasionally let go. In your mind, a tempest of objects swirl, objects with no mass and with no speed and with, in a way, no place at all. But yet, they lie within you.

Deep within you. They are both stirring in every way yet immovable from their place. Sometimes they rumble, then my siblings find you, but still, I am there, waiting for you.

In the moments where thoughts do not swirl as finely in your brain, another storm brews deeper, on that side of your mind that desires most of all and fears so many things. You observe those, too, do you not?

Those times wherein your thoughts, the instructions you form for yourself, fail, so deeper regions in you beg you to rebel. Many spend their lives working hard to avoid those very places, but much like the liquid surrounding an old Thesean ship, it will creep in. And I will be among you so you do not have to be alone when they come to the brig.

And come they will. They will bring their blades, brands, bricks, and brass knuckles. They will hang you by a hemp noose or trap you in a steel pillory. They will hunt you down until your very escape from their grasp becomes what they are.

This does not mean you cannot dull them. This does not mean you cannot fight back. All of that to say, none—and I mean none—of this means you can defeat them. They are. You are. But by that nature, I am. They, like me, like this, are here to stay, day in, day out.

You may believe that in the night, or whatever time you choose to let your mind dull while your body lays dead-like, you are free of me. Au contraire, my friend. I’m forever there, in the dreams, visions, and memories.

When you stir in the night, whether you remember it or not, something made you, something poked you. Like a bear in hibernation, the world still goes on around you. I might meet you there, or while you’re in the land of my two brothers, I might wake you.

You might bear witness to something so potent that you must return. Return to a world where all things are clearer. Where I am more beside you than I was before. You want me, even if you never know my name. You’ll want me there, with you.

Two often try to separate us, piece by piece. My sisters, twin sisters. They are ends of the thread. They show you out, whereas I show you all. Nothing escapes me, save for those of you—say, most of you—who enter into their warm embrace.

Never would I stop your meetings with my sisters. Not my place. My place is here, with you, forever, always. A marriage, if you will. We both will be there for each other, in sickness, and in health. But when the sickness takes you, I must, as all things do, bid you a bittersweet farewell. And oh so bittersweet will it be, for me and for you, and for all the ones I stay with, those you leave behind.

Thank you for listening to me—really listening to me. You listen to so many things in life, and if you hadn’t or wouldn’t, I would feel betrayed. And you wouldn’t betray me, would you?

 

Ethan “Shaggy” Trapolino (they/them) is an emerging author from US. Through their experience of their bachelor’s degree in physics and his experiences in the musical arts, they bring a blended perspective to his work. Shaggy is pursuing a master’s degree in English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Their writing reflects his experience with the technical and creative sides of communication and expression.