I Is An Otter

Where do people find their identity these days? One nice thing about old age, you stop worrying about it. You don’t need it. It’s just sand bags on one’s inner balloon. The one that rises out of the head & settles like herons on the ceiling which has become the shallows of the Nile. The word 'identity' sounds so formal. Like something you climb into. Rubber wet suit. Face mask. Flippers. Now you’re ready. Ready to be someone. Ready for the ocean. The world of water. Where everything is fluid. And takes on the appearance of its immediate environment. Like an octopus crawling into a crevice of a rock becomes the rock. In the human world, this is called a BCI: Brain-Computer Interface: the human becomes the computer into which they gaze. 

     Identities are ravenous, supple, and hyperbolic. They crave opera. Cataclysms and sirens. Good hygiene. Pretty much anything to do with water. Noodles, for example. Weddings and rice. Seaweed sweeps over the feet of the Atlanteans as they arise from the waves and walk on shore. What world is this, they wonder. They have glowing beards and curly hair. The air is unstable. Ecstasy swims in their eyes. They look inquisitive and sputter like uncut gems. I worry that the storm and its furious illuminations will shatter the cafe with the intensity of their affections. 

     The harness of afternoon sparkles across pendulums of beehive and vine. Neon horses nibble in shadow. Two things to like about late afternoon: one, the pistons have stopped pounding and the machinery of day has shut down. Two: you can take it easy, lean back into a nice soft parenthesis that appears to be a part of the overall narrative but really isn't, it's a passing thought, the drift of smoke from a barrel of burning wood. The eye of the hurricane that is your life. It’s a bussed dining table after dinner and you're inundated, mesmerized by the blue in a glass of curaçao. 

     I like being absent at dinner. When I’m absent at dinner I can eat as much as I want. Because I’m not there. I’m absent. And when I’m not around I can do what I want. I can do anything. I can’t do everything. Everything takes presence & I don’t have any of that. But I do have absence. My absence is present. I’m like a bitcoin. I’m based on nothing. And nothing is my value. It’s the value of absence. I’m having a fire sale on absence. Take as much absence as you want. I have an endless supply of absence. I’m a Costco of absence. Empty warehouse. Of beautiful nothing.