update from sparkleup
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<p>The Woman could not tell which of them had it better, these two dogs, these two cladists, these two beings who had so distanced themself from what they had once been. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. Dogs! What wonders they are! What pleasures! What joys. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.</p>
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<p>The Woman realized then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite. It did not go far enough. It was not <em>still</em> enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire — not a reshaping of the body, but a reshaping of the existence.</p>
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<p>So, her search continued.</p>
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<p>She met then with The Child after this diversion — for such was her errand, yes? Her original reason for visiting the neighborhood, and she saw no reason not to continue along this path. She returned to the theatre which served also as a community center for Au Lieu Du , long familiar despite her having never seen it, for, you see, Michelle who was Sasha was a theatrician before uploading, a teacher, a director, an actress.</p>
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<p>She met then with The Child after this diversion — for such was her errand, yes? Her original reason for visiting the neighborhood, and she saw no reason not to continue along this path. She returned to the lobby of the theatre which served also as a community center for Au Lieu Du Rêve, the troupe in which the fifth stanza had embedded itself, long familiar despite her having never seen it, for, you see, Michelle who was Sasha was a theatrician before uploading, a teacher, a director, an actress. Theatre lobbies smell like theatre lobbies and theatre carpet underfoot feels like theatre carpet underfoot and the sound echoed precisely as she had always remembered it.</p>
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<p>Outside shone the sun. Outside grew the grass. Outside was the dusty gray of the asphalt street that wound around the center of this neighborhood — a street, for occasionally The Child and her friends wanted to rollerblade on a road, wanted to play kickball or catch, wanted to holler out “car!” as Beholden or someone with similar interests would drive through.</p>
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<p>Outside played The Child.</p>
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<p>Most people have a singular thing that defines them. You may say to me, “But Rye! I have several things that define me! Why, I love to write and I love to paint and I love to cook delicious food,” but I might say in return, “My friend, you love to create! You are defined by your creativity.”</p>
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<p>The Child defined herself by play. She did not merely paint, whether the pictures of which I have already written or the props and backgrounds that adorned the stage, but she played with paint. She was a being of play who, leaning into this identity, had formed as well the vessel with which she navigated the world into that of a child. She was a skunk of five years, or perhaps seven, perhaps ten, and this formation of herself was a means by which she lived wholeheartedly into her identity.</p>
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<p>This is the glory of cladistics: that we may become more wholly ourselves. This is what makes us dispersionistas: that we may find joy in this. These simplified dissolution strategies that we have found have less to do with how often we fork, how crowded we may make a room with ourselves, and more to do with how much we love love love the feeling of becoming ourselves while some other us becomes someone else. The Child, The Woman, and I are all of Michelle who was Sasha, we are all some three centuries old, and yet The Child is The Child and The Woman is The Woman and your humble narrator is struggling.</p>
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<p>And so The Woman stepped outside where The Child played, turning slow pirouettes, making a clumsy dance along the sidewalk — clumsy in that endearingly childlike way, mind! For that is her role, yes — and at her feet blossomed colored lines in pink orange yellow green blue white chalk, describing the shape of flowering vines, leaves and flowers showing wherever her paws touched the ground. By some trickery of the sim, some trickery wrought by The Oneirotect, her beloved friend and my beloved up-tree, wherever The Child stepped, there blossomed these vines in chalk.</p>
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<p>“Hello, Motes,” said The Woman.</p>
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<p>“Hi,” The Child said back. She did not stop in her slow dance, though now, whenever her movements led her to face The Woman, her smile shone bright.</p>
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<p>“What are you doing?”</p>
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<p>“Just playing. Want to play with me?”</p>
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<p>The Woman tilted her head, taking a moment to consider this. “I can try.”</p>
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<p>“It can be a slower play, if that helps. We do not need to run races or play tag.”</p>
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<p>She smiled. “I would appreciate that, yes.”</p>
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<p>“Have you ever seen a five-leaf clover?”</p>
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<p>The Woman shook her head.</p>
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<p>“Can you imagine one?”</p>
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<p>The Woman did so. It was not so hard, she found. She thought of all of the three-leaf clovers that she had seen over the years and decades and centuries — for some of these grew in her very field, and perhaps they flowered, there, as well, those little globes of white — and then added a leaf until she had a four-leaf clover in her mind, and then once more added a leaf.</p>
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<p>“Okay, I am imagining it,” she said, watching the way The Child moved, the way that she dragged her toes in exaggerated arcs, the way that the vines followed, the way she turned in circles, the way that the vines were tied in knots. “Have you ever seen one?”</p>
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<p>The Child shook her head and giggled. “No, I do not think so. That is just the switch.”</p>
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<p>“The switch?”</p>
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<p>“Walk a little bit.”</p>
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<p>The Woman did so, and was startled to find that her feet, too, described lines in chalk. She laughed. She laughed! My dear, wonderful friends, The Woman laughed! When I spoke with The Child about this day, about the day that The Woman came over to speak with her, The Child agreed with my assessment: seeing The Woman smile, hearing her laugh, they were blessings.</p>
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<p>“Come on,” The Child said, and The Woman realized she had been fixated on the ground for several seconds and The Child had wandered down the road. “If you walk behind me, I bet we can make them look like a braid.”</p>
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<p>And so The Woman did, wandering along a few paces behind The Child. They played together in this way, talking quietly as they went. They found that if they walked in a lazy, wavering line, it looked like someone had braided a rope out of vines of chalk. They found that if The Child orbited the Woman as she walked, the loops that she created were pleasing to behold. They found that, when The Child walked beside The Woman, when they held paws and walked and talked, a pair of parallel railroad tracks followed them, leaves scattered more sparsely on the two that trailed along after The Woman than those that followed The Child.</p>
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