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<p>Ah, but perhaps this is why I interpret The Woman at being a professional napper.</p>
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<p>Either way, when she returned home and lay down, she immediately fell into a deep, deep slumber. It was a sleep of no dreams, nor perhaps even rest, but served well as a way to disconnect from contexts innumerable, to step away from the world unpleasant. She slept and slept and slept — and yet, she slept for only twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later, she opened her eyes and looked up to the ceiling, and spent another ten minutes picking out familiar patterns in the drywall texture beneath the paint. They were her familiar constellations. There! The fennec. There! The open hand. There! There! There! The swan and the cat and the light-footed opossum dancing around the maypole.</p>
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<p>And then, at last, she stood up, and as her feet touched the ground she was, yes, whisked away into felinity, and so it was The Woman who was a cat who padded back downstairs, dressed now in billowy slacks and a flowing blouse. She dressed this way because she felt unstable, and knew that chances were better than not that she would wind up a skunk by that evening.</p>
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<p>(the tenth stanza lingers in suffering and defines themselves by it, just as the seventh does with therapy)</p>
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<p>The living room was empty, but sitting on a stool in a kitchen with a thoughtful expression on her face was Her Cocladist. Her Cocladist, for reasons too complicated for me to pick apart in a fairytale, struggled with her form more even than The Woman did. The Woman would occasionally blip from human to feline or from feline to skunk or from skunk to human, but, in ways that neither I nor The Woman remembered without fondness, Her cocladist lived in a constant superposition of forms. As she sat there on her stool, cheek resting in her palm while a pot bubbled lazily away on the stove, she wisped steadily between skunk and human. Skunk. Human. Skunk. Human. Her pale white skin, which had ever been so soft to the touch and borne such overwhelmingly kind smiles, would give way to black fur. Her hair, curly and dark that framed her face so well, would ghost into a tousled white mane. Behind her a luxurious tail would swish into being and then out again without a second thought.</p>
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<p>I do mean that, friends. There is no thought behind this constant changing. When I experienced that, so many years ago, nearly three centuries ago, it was never a thing I could control, not well. I could swallow down a form for a while. I could gulp dryly and linger for a while in humanity, only for a cough or hiccup to come along and send little cookie ears to sprouting, send a white-striped-black muzzle stretching in front of my face.</p>
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<p>And always when this happened, the slightest touch would lead to bile rising in my throat. It would feel like sunburn. It would feel like some awful beast letting its bulk settle against me, reminding me of its presence — a threat — with slow breaths.</p>
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<p>I do not know if you have ever touched a skunk, dear readers, but they are not silky soft. Their fur is <em>soft</em>, yes, but in the plush, cushy way that a dog’s might be, or perhaps a short-haired cat. We are truly lovely to pet, I can assure you of that! Why, I will pet my tail for hours as I sit and think and write in my head. In fact, I am doing that right this very minute! </p>
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<p>Skunks, I mean to say, are still lovely to pet. We can push our snouts up into your hands and tilt our heads to ensure you scratch in just the right spot behind one ear or another. More, we deserve that. All creatures deserve that which they cherish, and we cherish touch.</p>
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<p>We all cherish touch, and in those moments when we were ghosting back and forth, when touch led to vertigo, that which we cherish was taken from us, and for some of us, for The Woman’s cocladist, this was still true. It was not perhaps always true — perhaps there were stretches when she was able to settle into one form and exist in comfort and get gentle, doting pets from The Woman or some other cocladist or some perhaps lover, and perhaps she may yet still.</p>
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<p>But for so much of her life, this lovely touch, this cherished thing, was out of reach for Her Cocladist, and so she sat on the stool before the stove while a pot bubbled lazily away.</p>
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<p>“Rejoice,” The Woman said quietly from the entrance to the kitchen, bowing to Her Cocladist.</p>
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<p>Tired eyes swung around to meet her, and an equally tired smile graced both human face and skunk muzzle. “Ah, End Of Endings, my dear, my dear,” Her cocladist said twice over. “Have you been well? Have you had a good nap? Did you have a productive therapy session?”</p>
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<p>The Woman smiled as well — though her smile was not quite so tired, you understand; she just had her nap — and willed a stool into being some few feet away from Her Cocladist. “I have been well, yes, and my nap was as lovely as always. As for therapy, well…” She trailed off, shrugged.</p>
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<p>Her Cocladist nodded. “I understand. I ought to perhaps consider picking such things back up once more. There are many therapists, yes? Not just within our own clade, yes? Perhaps I will seek one of them out some day when I am not so tired.”</p>
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<p>The Woman nodded. She knew what was coming next, but we all have our rituals, yes?</p>
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<p>“But when will that be? Who knows. I am always tired, yes?” A dry chuckle, and then, “Such is our lot in life.”</p>
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<p>“Perhaps, Rejoice. I would like to think that there is something else. I have been thinking again on the process of unbecoming.”</p>
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<p>Her Cocladist sat up straighter. “Ah, yes, your dream.”</p>
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<p>The Woman nodded.</p>
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<p>“You will have to tell me when you figure out what that is,” Her Cocladist said, then returned to watching the pot. “That is, I think, something that I would be interested in, yes?” She waved a paw that was now a hand that was now a paw again demonstratively.</p>
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<p>“Of course, my dear.”</p>
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<p>Once more, Her Cocladist rested her cheek carefully on her hand or paw or perhaps both. “If there is aught else aside from our lot in life, I would desperately like to know. I am not sure I believe that there is. If the seventh stanza exists to provide us with therapy, then we exist to give them clients. If they need suffering to fix, then we must suffer.”</p>
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<p>The Woman sat in silence along with Her Cocladist after that, and the house was as as silent as it ever was, and the only noise in the kitchen was the lazy bubbling of a pot on the stove wafting the scent of some mild curry throughout the kitchen, and The Woman wrapped herself up in that scent and took what comfort she could from it as she thought on Her Friend’s words some days ago, all but confirming Her Cocladist’s sentiment about the seventh stanza, and what it meant that such might also be true for her stanza, the tenth, and her thoughts bubbled as lazily as the pot on the stove and The Woman sat in that silence with Her Cocladist, and the house was as silent as it ever was.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-05-13</p>
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@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ What will become of me?
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<ul>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="001.html">001</a> — The Woman’s life is too real, and she would like that to not be the case / Living forever waiting for time to come/as a real person — 2339</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="002.html">002</a> — The Woman runs into Her Friend, who is having a very bad day, and shares her idea / Saving Geppetto — 3292</li>
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<li class="done1"> <a href="003.html">003</a> — The Woman sees why Her Friend was having a bad day (seventh only ever says talk to a therapist rather than offering friendship, tenth does the same sometimes, narrator starts to peek through), has a similar bad day / Swallowed by the big fish</li>
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<li class="done2"> <a href="003.html">003</a> — The Woman sees why Her Friend was having a bad day (seventh only ever says talk to a therapist rather than offering friendship, tenth does the same sometimes, narrator starts to peek through), has a similar bad day / Swallowed by the big fish</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="004.html">004</a> — The Woman aims for greater pleasure to try and re-ground herself, narrator questions pleasure vs productivity / Pleasure Island</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="005.html">005</a> — The Woman tries being creative with Her Friend to create meaning, narrator really showing through by now / Puppet show to prove no strings/earn money for Geppetto</li>
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<li class="done0"> <a href="006.html">006</a> — The Woman muses on the clade and her past, the ways she was taken advantage of, narrator talking about obsessions and balance / Honest John and Gideon the cat</li>
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