Solip’s Fables: The Corpus and the Hair

The day started off like any other. With fifteen minutes of stretching followed by fifteen minutes of shrieking. There’s an abandoned church (abandoned by whom is a good question since God is surely still lounging inside its echoey halls absent drowsy parishioners) outside my window. I accept that my morning regimen is complete when every bird resting on the roof has flown away, unsettled by successive yells shaking their feathers. Sometimes, on days of unmitigated exaltation, my yelps are enough to disrupt local air travel. 

Then I left the house for a pre-dawn stroll. At a nearby park, I noticed several hilariously uprooted trees. Wishing to make a sarcastic comment I quickly scanned my surroundings for any sign of life. There was a man about my age standing off to the side, playing with a disagreeable strand of long curly hair. Before going any further, I should add that the hair was his own. 

“Have you seen the latest forecast?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“It calls for heavy winds, even heavier than last night” I said, pausing for a second or two. Dramatic effect, okay? “So we’re not out of the woods yet.”

He smiled, clearly appreciative of a pointlessly stupid remark amid such arboreal carnage. 

“Do I know you? You look really familiar,” I said

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“There’s something about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it,” I said. And I wouldn’t, not exactly. The laws of the land frown on stranger touching, pandemic or not. 

“See ya ‘round,” I said.

He started to leave, skipping over the power lines that should've been cleared the night before.

“If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, gimme a ring.”

“Where’s that?,” he said.

“Don’t you know?”

He left, sprinting through traffic and into the breeze - gone. A wraith, or something. I started to walk back, wondering how long it would take me to make fire from a couple of downed branches. Now I wished those power lines were live. Then it hit me. A tree limb about the size of my forearm. I knew where I’d seen the longhaired gentleman before. He was me. I was him. I started to notice myself everywhere. A squirrel had my laugh. An ant had my scowl. A piece of wet bark had my complexion – after, not before, moisturizing. A seriously important detail.

The world is a painful and complicated place. But you’re never alone when everything is about you.