Found Writing
Choose a short name. Google the name. Open the first found page. Find the works corresponding to the name's letter position (A=1, d=4, etc.). Write for 15-20 minutes inspired by those words.
Amy, if, to, she
hmmm . . . challenging. . . .
If she is to arrive this Wednesday . . . if, that is, she were to arrive via plane, which is the only way she could possibly arrive by Wednesday . . . well, perhaps not the only way. If she were to teleport, for instance, or project her astral self . . . though in the second case, that begs the question whether
she has really arrived. If she has, then what of her body? Is that no longer
she? Or is it only a part of she? If the body dies, does she,--fully--remain in a disembodied state? Or is some part of her gone forever? What if the astral self dies (if such as thing can occur)? Then is she gone, even if the body remains, alive, comatose? Or would the body even be comatose? Why is that necessary? Maybe she snaps to reality, but a part of her is missing, as if she forgot where she placed a picture of her mother and father, or suddenly can't remember her own birthday. Not that she wouldn't actually remember . . . but that's the feeling I'm trying to describe. Imagine, not remembering your own birthday. Wouldn't it seem as if a part of you were missing? Maybe in your dreams, where some say the astral form (if there is such a thing) roams freely, you can be destroyed, and then you awake, not remembering your dream--which is usual--but not feeling like yourself. The feeling will go away, you think. But it doesn't. If this could happen to you, or me, then it could happen to her.
Why would she travel here by astral projection, with it being so risky? Why not take the plane? She could still be here Wednesday. Or take the train, or rent a car. Wednesday isn't so important, compared to feeling like you can't remember your birthday.
If she is to arrive at all, it must be the she, the whole she and nothing but the she. Not that I would know for sure, nor would you. We can tell something's wrong with our friends, but if it's minor, and persists, then it becomes part of them and part of us. They have changed, and we've changed to fit them, and for all we know there was something really wrong. Part of him, or her, or you or I has gone missing and we all compensate. We're swimming, and someone leaves the pool. We fill in, if there are enough of us. We disperse. Even if it's just two of us, even if it were her and I--if she left, I would occupy the whole pool, but still, for some minutes, consciously notice her absense. I'd swim to where she'd been swimming, but cautiously, as if a part of her were still there. Maybe, while swimming, she changed, and the shape of that change is still riding within the currents and chlorine. I might leave it alone, she might come back, soon, enter the water, dive underneath and rejoin what was lost. She'd come back on some pretense. Forgot her goggles. But the goggles aren't what she lost. They are the shadow of the self that was on its way to liquid entropy.
She is to if as if is to her. In other words, there are many ifs, and she encounters them every moment. Any one of those ifs could remove a part of her. Perhaps all of them do. One facet of aging is that the ends of the chromosomes lose a little material from their ends upon each reproduction. Eventually, they no longer do what they were supposed to do. In effect, they forget themselves. Maybe the
ifs of each moment sandpaper off a little of our selves, until we forget and die.
If she's to arrive, and do so on Wednesday, she must do it without losing too much of herself. As must I. And if there is no hope against loss, then at least our ifs might compensate for each other's missing who.