M is for Myg

Are animals human? Is the Pope Catholic?

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer, eh Esteban? No, seriously, go take a look in the mirror. A good look. I’ll wait here.

Back already? Did you see it? I mean, first of all, that wasn’t you in the mirror–you realize that by now, don’t you? But did you see it? The ape, or whatever it was, flickering there in your dented brow? The nostrils? What happened to your sense of smell? Remember how it was, and you peeled a banana with your feet? Jesus. It wasn’t you in the mirror mostly because you have no idea who you are, much less about the animals in there padding softly through the fallen pine needles of the forest floor. Bite you!

I’m not being insulting. Everything that I say to you applies to me, maybe even more so. This isn’t some epistemological improvisation; this is real life, and I know better than most that anyone I see in the mirror is a fantasy, a made-up thing I use to get around in and buy the groceries without going crazy, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Rowr!

My mother–I don’t talk about her much–taught me about the animals, how before it was clear that the jaguar was a person, and the rabbit. She’d learned it from her grandmother before her parents took her to Cuba for the revolution. “Esteban,” she said to me, when I had drawn her picture, “Este, que ves, engaño colorido, que del arte ostentando los primores, con falsos silogismos de colores es cauteloso engaño del sentido.” It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but now it is clear like a mountain lake.

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paws: Peer Infinity

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under Esteban.