ANNOUNCEMENT:

As of January 15^th, day of violence, 2002, I have elected to “self-identify” as an English/Irish/pseudo-French-teutono-Briton (with a wonky nose).

Be on with your business.

Jimminycricket: what irks your eyes moist, dave?

Davedisbelief: I have lost the use of my legs in a horrific car accident.

Jc: where are we dave?

Dd: we are in the hospital. I am awaiting treatment.

Jc: you should count yourself lucky to be alive today dave.

Dd: I know. It is not easy in this world being an indo-european-pseudo-australian black American with a half-chinese cousin. My life has been beset with struggles. I should take a leaf out of your book. You are just a disembodied voice. Whereas my legs, being only ornaments, are still at least ornaments, you have no legs, head or arms or torso even.

Jc: that’s right. Although I have never had the legs so am not forced to come to terms with losing them. Their persistent absence has simply been a fact of life.

Dd: although you must at one point have felt the pressure of society… the pressure upon you for being different.

Jc: not really. Remember I am just a disembodied voice. I am not even sure if I have opinions of my own. I recognise to an extent that I am simultaneously humanistic and fundamentally inhuman. I am in the privileged position of being totally unbound by humanistic expectations and the need to create, communicate, and/or conform to an identity. If you look up free in the dictionary, there is a picture of me next to it. Or there would be, if I had physical form.

dd: am I hallucinating?

jc: I don’t know. How many fingers am I holding up?

dd: none.

Jc: what will you miss the most about your legs?

Dd: I will miss the ability to run away from things. Events. From now on I will feel dependant on people for my well-being. I will miss the idea of myself as a complete human being. I sense I will be looked down upon even though my other faculties are the same as they always were.

Jc: you hurt because your identity has been changed. Your brain is a retainer of identity, seeking to constantly reinforce your ideas about three things – your environment, the people you are surrounded by and yourself. Each one of those three things is set to change for the worse. As an evolutionary gene-vehicle, your viability has been seriously damaged. But you are still equipped with the correct material for the dispensation of pleasure.

Dd: so what does the future hold?

Jc: I do not even know what the present holds. Except that darkness will grow in some places and light will shine in others. You must shine a light on your darkness, or be engulfed by it.

Dd: what does that mean?

Jc: have you considered that I, as a disembodied voice, should not actually theoretically be possible?

Dd: well… yes.

Jc: perhaps I am not here. perhaps you are a fantasy of mine, or myself a fantasy of you. Perhaps there is no physical form and I am imagining it.

Dd: or perhaps I am imagining you.

Jc: exactly. It is likely that we are both drawing from the same pool of information. Everything I can say, you can know by yourself. Or vice-versa. The purpose of this communication is that the imaginer will learn a lesson relevant to his life. Something he or she will be able to use in whatever reality turns out to be. Perhaps you are just a sounding board for my ideas.

Dd: so… what exactly have you come to tell me?

Jc: I do not know. There is nothing I can tell you that you don’t know yourself. perhaps you sought the perspective of pure truth… of something not coloured by human beliefs. Perhaps you wish to believe that no situation is fundamentally bad, unless you have a memory of something better. Perhaps you seek to dismiss the reality which preceded your current condition. Perhaps you wish to make it abstract somehow.

Dd: we can only be sure of one thing: one of us is imaginary, and the other is totally insane.

Jc: that’s two things.

FIN.