Without You,There Is No Us

Reads like a family allegory, just ten pages in, and perhaps it is.

Sometimes, I imagine my family story to date is a nightmarish fairy tale.



Variations on Schrodinger's father

When I was young you told me about a boy who asked a lost man for a sheep. He was not satisfied until the man gave him a small box. Though the box was a kind that could never be opened, the boy could somehow see with perfect clarity that a lamb slept inside. With great concern, he asked the man to pierce the box with holes so that his sheep would not run out of air.

When I think about you these days, I remember the man boring holes into a black box for a sheep he cannot be certain exists, let alone see. When I write you these letters, I see myself whittling slowly and methodically and, I fear, perhaps not deftly enough to keep you alive. I carve carefully because I worry that any errant nicks may harm you, who I hope are only sleeping peacefully inside -- though for all I know, I could be cutting into solid stone.

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