How does the whitespace compare to all the thick fullness that you see everywhere? I don’t know – I think it would help if I find some structure, some senseless derision in the smiles of those that look down on me. But sometimes, there isn’t anything to be said for not writing the things you feel like keeping. Maybe it shouldn’t all be kept.
Do you think we would be better off, when the words would just vanish off the page and slide into the automated rubbish bins off of the coast of our collective minds? There’s something to be said for that.
– How are you doing?
– I don’t know – I’m alright – I’ve still got all my toes and testicles.
– Testicles?
– Yes, those egg-shaped things between my legs.
– I know what testicles are, ass!
– I think one of them is probably taking a little time off.
– Why is that?
– Oh, you know – it feels a bit lighter than usual.
– How? I mean, as a figment of your imagination, I don’t know what it’s like to have differently weighing testicles. But that does make me wonder – how can you weigh them or at least feel their weight so accurately to tell you that one suddenly became lighter?
– I have a sixth sense for that.
– An ingrained testicle-weighing mechanism – boy, you were last in line when they were handing out superpowers, weren’t you?
– Ha-ha, very funny.
– No, seriously – how do you weigh them? Do you put them in water – do you keep them up in the air – do you add weight to them?
– Why do you care so much? Can’t you just accept my statement at face value?
– Testicle value, you mean? But no. It just makes very little sense.
– And why is that, oh, wise un-testicled one?
– Because it seems like one of those things you say just to be able to talk about genitalia again. It’s such an easy subject and you just resort to it whenever it becomes a little bit hard to think about anything else.
– Just drop it, okay?!
– Fine, whatever. So what else is new?
– Suddenly, I don’t feel like talking to you any more.
– So what, you’re going to mope? Pathetic.
In 400 years, they probably won’t even be able to understand the things we wrote. Genitals probably won’t even exist any more. We think we write eternal, but look at what the guys in the seventeenth century were wearing. Would you even consider reading anything they put to paper? I wouldn’t, because I am predominantly naked all the time, unlike them…
Tim van den Oudenhoven 