It was not my intention to hang on this long. Now, blinking in the grey light, I can't even remember how long its been. The more I realize how little I know (who I am, how long I've been here, where here is . . . ), the more I assert my own anxious energy to the task at hand. I pull, terrified, with all my weight and with every gasp of strength. But with every spurt of effort I pour into this pulling, she, in turn, pours an equal amount of effort into pulling the rope in the opposite direction. Why I am terrified I don't even know anymore, and this just increases my terror. She feels differently though, I believe. I've never discussed it with her. She seems to have resigned herslf to a blissful blankness of emotion - to a sort of meditational toil. Her body is coiled into a mechanized, brainless object, destined to respond to my effort in kind, and nothing more. Her physical fibre has become like a taught trampoline membrane, that when pushed, responds with an equivalent push in the opposite direction.
A vague shaft of light, from a small window high above, illuminates her form. I realize that I love her. Is she capable of love? We don't speak. Is she capable of speach?
Looking down, I realize for the first time that we are no longer hauling, as I had believed, on either end of a strand of rope. Rather, our two arms have become one arm, connected to my shoulder on one end, and to hers on the other, with two elbows in between. We cannot let go! We are one, defined by our antagonism.
At any rate, even if we could let go, we would only fall over!
- edited Sunday, January 14th, 2007
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