I went to the circus and I went to the amusement park, my woodworking father trailing behind me at every turn. Whipped and beaten, set on fire and scarred with strange tools resembling the legs of insects. Measured and pierced, as if I were not hard, painted wood but shoe leather. Trimmed and sewed. Slapped onto the ground, one self in front of the next; one, two, I was ahead of me and behind me.

I was lost. I fled.

I purchased the air.

Down into the ocean, through story after story of water, darker as I became heavy as lead.

There was my father in the belly of the whale, among other shipwrecks.

We swam and swam and we wearied.

“But where is that blessed shore?” asked the little old man, more and more worried as he tried to pierce the faraway shadows. “I am searching everywhere and I see nothing but sea and sky.”

If there is a door between us, you cannot say what I am. You cannot say that I am pure or impure. You can ask questions that only a human would know, and those that only a marionette would know. When wounded, when punished, when scorned and rejected, like a block of wood, the other blocks of wood cry out, as I once did. Now, like children who want to live long enough to become adults, some of whom are in peril of living and dying as children, I know better than to make a sound.

Notes

Note

In “Replication,” R0 stands for basic productive ratio.

References

References

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