Before the blood but after the slit—a narrow line parting myself—there is a period of time, a sliver really, where my brain understands the mistake I have made—the knife’s edge slipping along me, across the top of my index finger between the knuckle and the nail, something minor—as the chopped herbs observe and either take solace or find redemption in not being the only cut thing, either way we are both parted and in the sliver of time
before the blood but after the slit, I climb inside, I go straight in my open wound; the soup is simmering, the herbs (a garnish) have mostly been prepared, the bread sliced and toasted, as grandma does in a pan with oil, and with little concern of a kitchen fire, I climb inside, the voices in the living room, the dinner guests we always said we would have over sooner or later, and now three years later, we have kept to our promise and when everyone arrived and the conversation started I did what I always do, busy myself, make an excuse because talking makes me restless even with my friends and so I must move about, drink my drink so I can leave to get another, and how many drinks have I had since our guests arrived, two or three, probably three, most likely three when I come back from the kitchen, immediately announce, I forgot to cut the greens, I will go do that now, please stay where you are, and I return to the cutting board, return to the blade, return to a task that isn’t speaking and then I am alone in the kitchen at a dinner party, something that could never really happen because any dinner party means congregated in the kitchen even in our tiny kitchen that fits three at most but during a party easily fits ten to twelve, but not here at this particular party where it is only me, which seems impossible, a fiction, but maybe not since I can hear a guitar in the other room and then another stringed instrument and of course all the musicians we invited start playing music, first with strums, then with chords, and finally a choir of voices singing along, everyone but me, and
before the blood but after the slit, the light almost immediately goes, does not follow me inside myself as I crawl further in and the distance is growing, I am small, small enough to fit into the slit, all of this happening rather easily, effortlessly my traversing inside myself is not at all terrifying, nothing like the reckless teacher who recklessly took her students on unbelievable field trips where you would expect the children to be in a panic, but all are rather excited by their field trips on a magical vehicle where they get to learn about their subjects up close—let’s shrink down to phytoplankton, let’s travel through our solar system, why not go inside a human body—and no waiver form ever includes going into a human body, I wonder how a parent could sign that specific form, perhaps they were busy and didn’t see the location, perhaps they were expecting a museum or planetarium, not a living human body, maybe the parent was distracted with making dinner, finishing their own work after they put everyone down to bed, but not before everyone ate, finished their homework, did the dishes, watched an episode of their favorite show, had a bath, brushed their teeth, only then can the parent finish their own work before they go to sleep too, only to soon wake and go to work so maybe they just skimmed the permission form, and off everyone went, where all the children could learn up close to this week’s topic and once the lesson ended, everyone returned safe and sound with not the slightest sign of injury, no trauma to speak of, except maybe for the scaredy cat kid, the one who questions, the one who doubts, the one who must deep down enjoy the field trips given he hasn’t requested a transfer to another class even when the field trip went inside a living human body, that body being their classmate, and this seemed like the real problem, the larger concern for me, the intrusiveness of it all, though with their classmate’s consent, the class entered him at the microscopic level, through a gash on his knee and on through the bloodstream in search of what was making him ill, and how could the students look their classmate in the eyes after such an experience, to see all the parts of him, parts he could never see for himself, and
before the blood but after the slit, I did what the students had done, what the classmate who was intruded upon could never do alone, I climb inside myself, I go deeper, push through darkness, where everything is rather soft and shifting beneath my steps, it’s like being in a jump house where the floor is displaced, divots and bulges in opposition to the compression of my weight, my being where it shouldn’t, in the darkness I’m not sure which part of me I am actually passing through—a vein, a lymph node, an organ, some pocket within bone—I never took biology or human anatomy in school, I think I’m in a kind of recess, something like a channel, unless I am so small everything seems like a passageway, not that I could tell, not even if I had a match, a torch, a headlamp, I go down or forward, in a direction, I climb inside and go as deep and as fast as I can and what exactly spurred this on, I ask myself, wasn’t the party good, no unforeseen problems with the meal, everything was coming together, everyone seemed to be having a good time, is that laughter I hear outside, yes, they are all having a grand time, and so why then did I jump at the chance to climb inside myself, and with the question posed I now have to search for a reason, search as I inspect myself from within, and eventually I remember a question I’ve been asking myself often, a question for a question: I wanted to know if some part of me was exactly the same as it was at the point of my inception, identical when I became an I, what I had started thinking of as my selfsame, and what exactly was the selfsame of a person, any person, I had been asking myself, the selfsame not being something that grew or changed over time and so then couldn’t be a physical aspect nor an immaterial one, the essence of one’s being, what some would call a soul, so then what remained beyond the tangible and intangible, something that could possibly be witnessed in some fashion, not necessarily with eyes, ears, nose or mouth, or the prickly sensation as when encountering a ghost, an old spirit, but where I could say, this is my selfsame, so it was
before the blood but after the slit, I travel—not by means of some wonderfully designed piece of machinery as the students with the reckless teacher had done, I am forced onto my hands and knees, the once large area having compressed into a narrow corridor, probably a tube, and once I come upon my selfsame, I will know what I have always suspected: I have always been this way, was always meant to be this way, unavoidably, neither a factor of nature nor nurture but predominantly of my selfsame, yes I could correct many things about myself, things I had learned through nature and nurture, but not everything not the one thing that was me, my selfsame, that did not really direct my decisions, but underlined everything about myself, and when I come upon it, it is not for the sake of sharing with others, this was for myself, a way to understand, to accept myself to myself, and now I am crawling on my belly, the passage constricting more and more, and I start to fear I won’t find the place of my selfsame, the kids with the reckless teacher learn so much from their field trips, but me, I will likely come away with little in the sliver of time that has elapsed
after the slit and with the blood, I am expelled, forced out of myself the way I had come, before I could get anywhere at all, I come to and hurry to the sink to rush water over my finger, the music from the other room is loud, no longer insulated from being inside, and with water the pain develops, at first nothing and why does pain take so long to arrive, to show itself, come into focus, unlike my selfsame, best to leave it for now, I tell myself, there will be another time, there is plenty of time, you can’t expect to find your selfsame in a sliver, and
after the slit and after the blood, bandaged and back, I stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, where everyone is singing along, a collective joy similar to the children with the reckless teacher after having announced they are going on yet another field trip and where to, it does not matter because it will be unlike anything you have seen before, and everyone in the class cheers for the reckless teacher, and everyone in the living room claps and laughs as the song ends, our dinner guests as if they had taken something necessary away, a vital piece of understanding like the students always do after a field trip, and I am the student who missed out, who watched from afar due to the unforeseen circumstance of climbing inside myself, and with no great conclusion, no better grasp of the subject, my selfsame, all I can do is clap and cheer for the rest.