One. What is there to say that hasn’t been said before? Except, of course, that it hasn’t been said by me and isn’t that all that matters? At a going away lunch someone questions my self-absorption and I look at the guest of honor and give a little smile. “It’s not a problem,” I say. “She and I know that it’s always about me.”
The me in question is relative, subjective, fluid and vague. Who wouldn’t smile about that? People who don’t understand that have never bothered to question their weight, the solidness of their bodies, the very air that surrounds them.
Cold seeps into my body shaking my bones, but heat sits upon my skin. I tilt my face up to the sun and I can feel its rays land softly upon it, molding themselves to the contours of my face like a ten year old blanket.
One thing. One person. One love. One selfish thought after another, but only if you look at yourself through the eyes of a person who has never bothered to contemplate the basic realities of life. Consumed always by time and obligations, by wants and desires. Needs are sublimated, hidden, rushed, inviting and evoking guilt. Sins to be ashamed of, acts to be carried out in the dark and apologized for at dawn.
One is the beginning, the stepping stone, the first dot on the expansive horizon. One is the best kind of company, unless your character is wanting and then, well, one is simply too much to handle and you have to make it two so that another shares the burden.
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Plagiarism makes babies cry.