Sunset view getting into my truck after work.
The conversation takes place over a soup can telephone. The signal is weak and the line has to stay tight. Whatever is said can’t be recorded or digitized, only described later in he-said-she-said fashion.
Some writers have gotten it done, have vibrated the string and sent an intelligible message. Melville, Salinger, Palahniuk. You are not your wooden leg, your poppy petal mask, or your fucking khakis.
You are not anything that can be described.
Language is only description: metaphor, simile, dualism. This and that. Is or is not. Language can get you started but, in the end, it’s still just sounds on a soup can telephone. It cannot establish a clear line of communication.
The shorter the string, the stronger the signal. What if you trimmed it from twenty feet down to ten? Better. Ten inches instead of ten feet? Better still. But what if you made it infinitely short, eliminating it all together? Left with just two cans, what’s the point?
Why not ditch the cans all together and sit cheek to cheek with the Universe, God, the All, with your lips at her ear and her lips at yours? Why not whisper back and forth, quiet, true, and clear?
Robert Mitchell Jr. 