"i think we've got a floater..."

***

it is in the things that people think are nothing, or what's worse, close to nothing. i believe in, i care for these things.

have you ever stopped to wonder why you do that?

he became sheepish.

isn't it because they never talk back. not with their own independent words. it is always please and thank yous. yes, a lot of thank yous. it is because nothing, or close to nothing, ever hurts you. because you don't want to be hurt, ever again.

he looks up, his eyes suddenly afraid. then suddenly, he clutches his head, and his gut clutches his body, so he looks like something wounded, doubly folded over.

***

and thus it was that the boy looked upon his life with different eyes. he saw all of the things he had collected, all of the things he had talked to, with different eyes. he put all of those things in a dark plastic bag, all of the words he had written, all of the memories, and with tears blurring his eyes, he threw it all away.

and last of all, he lifted owlie and donald duck from their vaunted thrones on his bed, and, carrying them under his arm one secret night (walking very gingerly so as not to sound owlie's water bells), he took them to the high canal, the one at the very top of the weedelia field, and he dropped them one by one off the bridge, into the cold, dark flow of the waters. you are better this way, he whispered to their invisible, disappearing forms.

and then he sat on the bridge crying for a moment, but only for a moment, because he now hated everything he was, and hate was a cruel master that didn't allow you a moment of rest; it was waiting to throw a rubber slipper at your head if you weren't always treading the water.


***

i- i thought you were a healer or something. that's what my dad said. but all you've taught me is to- to hate myself. and i think, i think that's how i was already sick.

look, you misunderstand me. you seem to think that i am some kind of caring, benevolent creature. i'm sure your dad told you other things about me: about how i drown children, or rape women, or steal their innards (particularly their livers, yum!) through their anuses, and eat them fresh and bloody while the victims watched... how i would steal a person's very soul, their shiki-dama, just so i could have it, and just so a person couldn't... why, pray tell, would i ever heal you? why would i ever care to heal you?