What *was* her lot in life? What was *a* lot in life? Was she limited only to one thing? Was she bound to stasis? And what, then, of her thoughts on eternal stillness? What did it mean that a seed had been planted within her and had lately begun to sprout? She knew where they came from.
Her lot in life had at one point been to teach, to revel in the joy of acting and directing and sets and props and lights and sound and audience and her lovely, loving students who ached for nothing more than to be seen, to receive some perhaps hug from this person who they trusted and yet who could not give them such for fear of disease and regulation in equal measure, to receive some perhaps affection from their cohort and yet which their beloved teacher stopped them for fear of disease and regulation in unequal measure.
She knew the helplessness of having her agency ripped from her. She knew the feeling of being seen by something larger than mere personhood, a thing which saw her and said, "this here is a wretched and despicable thing," and then took her from the world. And then her lot in life was to campaign, for though she still taught on occasion, still directed, she found she could not act as she wished, and still she had to refrain from hugging for fear of the discomfort of touch.
She knew the feeling of splitting herself into ten unequal parts so that she might at last rest. She knew that her lot in life then became to process what she had become, for that was the role *she* remembered of the tenth stanza, not simply to linger in suffering.
She lingered on these thoughts in her unjoy and pondered the meaning, the actions implied, and, with as firm a resolve as a woman who is too much herself could muster, decided that she would *not* lean into this idea of perpetuity as Her Cocladist dwelt within. She may have a lot in life for a time — for a year, for a decade, for a century — but not for the entirety of her existence.
It was within this lingering that she reached out to Her Friend: *"No Hesitation, would you like to meet for coffee? I have something I would like to speak with you about."*
There was a sensation of a tilted head, of a quiet *huh,* in the sensorium message. *"Of course, my dear. So soon after our last meeting, too. I am curious what has you reaching out! When would you like to meet?"*
*"Now, if you are free."*
A laugh, and then, *"I can be. I can send a fork. Same place?"*
*"Yes, please."*
Today, for the first time in she did not know how many years, The Woman passed through her secret door onto the street with a brush of her fingers on jamb, and then walked to the coffee shop. Walked! She skipped the trolley! She let go of a ritual, gently set it down on the corner of the street where usually the trolley made its stop, and stuffed her paws in her pockets — for today was a day where she was apparently to be a skunk — and walked briskly to the coffee shop. Yes, the trolley passed her, yes she could have arrived much sooner, but there were the cobblestones beneath her feet-paws and there were the fallen leaves skittering anxiously about her and there was a gentle breeze tugging plaintively at her skirt and her shirt and her mane and her whiskers.
The Woman instructed herself to take joy in these things; or, if not joy, at least pleasure. She tried to feel the seams of cobblestones beneath her unclad feet for a block. She counted leaves for a block. She imagined the wind as gentle paws ensuring that she knew the bounds of her body for the last block. As she opened the door to the coffee shop, she considered her various success and failures in the exercise. The cobblestones were perhaps too cold, but the sensation more pleasing than she had imagined. The leaves made her anxious in turn, but she imagined them having errands to run, purpose before them. The wind proved to her just how thin her clothing was, and just how thin the fur beneath that was on her chest and belly, but it did indeed remind her of her bounds.
As her fingers brushed over the frame of the door and it shut behind her, she looked over to the bar to find Her Friend ordering the usual two mochas, tail looking quite frazzled.
I do not remember if I told you, dear readers, but The Woman's friend was *also* a skunk. Ey, along with ey stanza, had leaned firmly into that remembered identity. For, you see, we were furries before we uploaded, and we remain always furries. Even those who present as humans — plain and boring! Plain and lovely! — still have that identity within them; metafurry, we have called it. Before we uploaded, before we arrived sys-side, Michelle Hadje spent all the time we could online, on the 'net, where she presented herself as Sasha, a skunk who dressed herself in a linen tunic and Thai fisherman's trousers. Prior to that, she had been a panther, too, a feline creature of dark pelt and flowing dresses never was brave enough to wear as Michelle.
This is the reason why The Woman was at times a skunk and at times a panther and at times a human, and why Her Friend and I are skunks. We remember being a human and then going online to share in our zoomorphic joys with those around us.
And so there as Her Friend, standing by the counter, trying to quickly brush out the frazzled fur of eir tail while the barista worked on the two mochas. On spotting The Woman, though, ey straightened up, smiled, and bowed. "End Of Endings. It is a pleasure to see you again."
The Woman bowed in turn. "Very much so, No Hesitation. Shall I find us a table?"
Her Friend nodded.
The Woman had no trouble in staking out her usual spot, as when one goes to a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon, there are not quite so many who are hunting down drinks to help them wake up. That is not to say that there is any wrong time for a mocha, mind. I have mine right here, and I am writing this at nearly three in the morning.
"Now," Her Friend said after settling in in eir usual chair. "Tell me how you are feeling. Tell me about this topic you wanted to address."
The Woman smiled. "I am feeling okay. I was feeling quite good after our last meeting, though that faded over time, and for some days, I was feeling rather bad."
Her Friend nodded. "You have mentioned such in the past, yes."
"I suppose I have. I was thinking this time about how I felt so much joy, and how I wanted to share that with my cocladists, so I started making them little treats. It felt like I was putting a little bit of joy into each, though, and that led to me running out."
"Oh? Is this a new thought?"
The Woman furrowed her brow. "Perhaps, yes. I was thinking about it during the lead-up to therapy. I was having several strangely-shaped feelings, actually." She laughed, shaking her head. "I was feeling a protectiveness over that. I feel comfortable sharing it with you, my dear, but I did not feel that way with Ever Dream."
"Can you tell me about that?" Ey smiled, adding, "Sorry. I try to stay away from therapeutic language in our discussions, but habits are habits. I really do just want to hear."
"I trust you, No Hesitation." The Woman brushed the longer fur of her mane out her eyes as she pieced together her words. "It felt like a thing to bear within me. I...well, I had considered sharing it, as well, but then Ever Dream requested that I stop. I told her of our meeting and the joy and was going to mention this sharing of joy, but I mentioned our conversation and she requested that I stop. She said that she would like to hear about it from you herself rather than from me."
Her Friend sighed. "She did not need to. I understand why, but she did not need to. I believe that I am your friend before I am her cocladist, but I do not think that she would agree with that."
The Woman sat back in her seat, mocha clutched in her paws. "Alright. I believe you on that, too."
"Did you wish to talk about that? About joy diminishing?"
"No. I wanted to talk about a conversation that came up after the fact. I spoke with Rejoice, and she said that she felt that we are stuck with our lot in life, but the more I think about it, the less I believe that. We may have a lot we are dealt for a portion of our life, but not the whole of it."
"Are you thinking of your unbecoming, then?"
The Woman lapped at her whipped cream for a moment, considering. *Was* she? Perhaps she was. She had not connected those particular dots, but when it was stated aloud by someone other than herself, she felt truth in the worlds. "I suppose I am. I am wondering if reaching for something would be a sort of unbecoming of this static self."
"Ah! That does make sense," Her Friend said, smiling. "If becoming something new means unbecoming your current self, then I will gladly cheer you on, End Of Endings. You are one of my best friends on the System, and so I am happy to see you become ever more what you can be."
The two skunks smiled wide to each other, sharing in this sentiment, this mood, this, yes, joy. The Woman felt it now. She felt that the energy was perhaps not quite there, that she would have to truly exert herself, but that she could still reach for good things in her life. She would have to teach herself joy, and perhaps it would be much like what she had done on the walk here, a presentness or a deliberateness.
The Woman and Her Friend set to work, then, discussing what she could do, what she could learn, what she could yet become.
The Woman and Her Friend decided that her path forward would be one of intent and deliberate action. After all, that is how our System works, yes? We intend to be wearing a piece of clothing we like and we are. We intend to step from this sim to that, and we do. We intend to fork and, lo! There beside us stands another instance of ourself! They are a whole new us! They can live their own life, going their own separate way and making their own choices, or perhaps they can go out to do some task or another or visit some friend for coffee and then quit, merging themself back down into us.
Why five, you ask? Well, I honestly do not know! Perhaps because of the five fingers we have on each paw. Perhaps it is because we have two arms, two legs, and a head protruding from our trunk. Or perhaps it has to do with the stars. Starfish? Little wandering doodles to replace the tittles above our 'i's and jots above our 'j's? Each an iota, a mote, a symbol to our future selves, a note for later. Asterisms and asterisks.
Ah, but I digress. The Woman and her friend chose a list of five things that she would try — should, you see, is a value judgment — in order to seek joy in small ways or in small places. The Woman knew that it would be hard. She knew that she would have to bundle up all of her energy and all of her patience with herself and all of her drive and use that to let her last through these explorations of joy.
You see, the first of these five was easy enough to do by herself. She decided first to try new foods. She decided that she would try all *kinds* of foods! She rooted around through the exchange to see what things she had never tried, whether because she was not brave enough or because it sounded like it would taste too strong or because she remembered not liking it back when she was Michelle, back before she had uploaded.
The whole of the clade is, in so many different ways, focused on hedonism. Such is the joy of maintaining a hyperfixation of sorts. That the tenth stanza seemed to have, each at their own point in time, let that hyperfixation on processing shift into a sort of stasis was an accident. None of them are so sad, of course, that they cannot still feel joy in their lives, as we have well seen. The Woman has shown us, yes, and even Her Cocladist, who held so poor a view of her lot in life had joys, for it was her who most often cooked to the peculiar tastes of her stanza.
And The Woman had her own particularities when it came to food. When she cut the crusts off her sandwiches, it was a way to ensure that each bite contained precisely what she wanted in the ratio of bread to filling. After all, one cannot always spread the peanut butter up to the edge of the sandwich! If you do, your fingers will wind up sticky with peanut butter and the oil it stains your fur with will leave behind a lasting scent — ask me how I know! — but if you do not, then you wind up with a whole mouthful of little else but bread. It is a balancing act, you see, and The Woman has found that if she spreads the peanut butter just so, then cuts the crusts off, she winds up with more perfect bites than not.
Particularities and peculiarities! The Woman has as many as you or I, dear reader, and perhaps more, and so her first task was to seek that which her particularities and peculiarities had covered up. Was there a thing that she had missed? Was there a food that she had only ever tried bad approximations of and actually earnestly liked?
Yes and no, as is ever the case.
Yes, because, although her spice tolerance was quite low, her flavor tolerance was far higher than she had ever given herself credit for. She found in a Laotian restaurant a salad made with green papaya and soy sauce and fish sauce and mint and cilantro and the crispest lettuce leaves she had ever had a love of a new food. It was so *salty!* It was so *savory!* And yet it sat light on the tongue as mephit teeth struggled to crunch down on the slivers of unripe fruit well enough to macerate. It was sour with lime and tingling in the mouth with mint and coated the tongue with that pleasant soapiness cilantro seems so keen to provide.
The Woman fell in love immediately, and although the tom kha gai that followed was too spicy for her, she plowed through that as well, and set aside the sense of fullness as she worked next on mok pa, a dish of fish served steamed in banana leaves, and finished with a delightful plate of mango and sweet sticky rice, all drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. The fish was lovely, yes, and the dessert delicious, though it stuck in her teeth.
And no, because with each success shining as bright as that crunchy and flavorful tam mak hoong, there were dozens of nights of upset stomachs and burning taste buds. Pineapple, she found, was the fruit that ate you back. Chilies, she found, burned as hot as ever, and there were no ways in which she could comfortably consume them without being left in tears — she was left sobbing, my dears! On one memorable occasion, she was left sobbing, even after she forked with a clean mouth, even then, the remembered pain left her curled in a ball in the back room of the restaurant while the kindly owner doted on her with offerings of ice cream and soft pets and gentle, cooed reassurances.
No, because her limits were reinforced. For every victory, there was a reminder that she was unwhole. My friends, I think that *everyone* is unwhole. I know that I am. I know that I write and write and write, and that is lovely, yes, but I also know that I can be a prickly little terror when caught up in my emotions. I know that I spend my time at my books, at my desk, and, though I try to be a comfortable and comforting presence within my stanza, though I try to dote on my up-tree, I am never able to give quite as much as I would like. I think everyone is unwhole, and I think as well that, to us, our unwhole-ness is more evident, more dire than it is to those around us. You and I, friends, we see The Woman coming across a boundary in her tastes and nod and think to ourselves, "This is no moral failing! The Woman has done no wrong. She should feel no shame." But to her, it felt like a failure to reach joy.
She, too, understands dialectics, do not get me wrong. She, too, knows that these reassurances of boundaries also come with the discoveries that she made, all of the green papaya salads and savory Artemisian treats that Warmth In Fire and its ilk had set on the market that she fell in love with. But always before her was the goal of joy, and while she would count her successes, she would also count her failures — no, no, do not contradict her, she saw them as failures and there is now no changing of her mind, not these many years later, not as she is now — and cluck her tongue and shake her head and go home and lay down in her bed and take one of those naps that she was so good at.
There was joy, yes, but it was not a complete joy. Her hedonism with food was a lovely hedonism and she cherished it, but it was not the hedonism she needed for this task.
