We sit by the fire of a cozy mountain lodge, reading newspapers and drying off melted snow. We’re strangers to each other, and only the latest in a long line of indifferent, wet intruders to the fire. As you continue your reading, I ponder my toes.
They’re a bit claustrophobic in my shoes and socks, secretly wanting the warm air’s companionship. They’re clammy as well, wet and wrinkled and spongy from the snow. As I divert my attention back to the paper, I realize that I no longer really notice my toes, almost as if they had been amputated; yet when I decided I wanted to think about them again they appeared for my mind to grasp.
You read your paper and the fire crackles as I muse on this. In curiosity, I dwell on my third arm, which I do not have though it is long and slender and ends in a hand that always has as many fingers as it needs. My third arm is warm and seems to have fallen asleep from my sitting on it. I briefly become my legs to let it free, before abandoning them and the rest of myself to explore the arm fully.
I swing about aimlessly from a pivot-point on my chest, making a wide arc that I retract briefly to avoid smacking you across the face. Sweat from my long-folded skin evaporates quickly, leaving me cool and dry. The joy I feel! It’s so good to stretch, to really exist after so long. I unfurl my fingers now, and desiring sensation I brush your face.
I’m you now, and as near as I can tell, you’re you too. I’m still me, for that matter. I’m everything, I just don’t think about it much. I see that which is/was me tracking some blank spot with his eyes, as if he were trying to keep watch of an invisible, twisting serpent.
The fire crackles. I/you smirk. He stares. Trying to distract myself from my/his antics, I add a piece of wood to the fire.
So much warmth! I/the fire am/is a shifting, chaotic blob of energy, devouring the wood and being fed more by myself/you. I/the fire eat(s) this new offering quickly- too quickly- and I/you drop it in a panic as I/the fire spread(s) onto
the floor, freed from the cage of the moist interlopers.
I/you back away quickly, and gaze in silent astonishment at me/the fire. I/it am/is burning brightly and brilliantly, along the wood and up myself/him. I/he look(s) distressed for a moment, before finally accepting me/the fire. I/it/we slowly devour(s) him as I did the wood, and I/you could swear that in me/the fire I/he have/has three arms. And then he is gone, and I am his ashes, and I am you, and I am the fire, and I am everything.