When Colin Sullivan woke one morning from unsettling dreams, he found someone had chewed off his arm
Worth repeating: When Colin Sullivan woke one morning from unsettling dreams, he found someone had chewed off his arm — as well as added a finger.
Someone or some nearby beast with an arm fetish. A roaming six-fingered fanatic. An appendage fairy. Who could say.
“What’s happened to me?” he thought, before realizing he was a me. I suspected my dog. She was just the sort to wolf down an arm, I had to admit. Hungry all the time. Non-discerning about “what she ate.” Always hogging the bed. Sharp, carnivorous teeth.
Or suppose I were to begin by saying I had fallen in love with the idea “one-armed man.” Suppose I were to admit that I am Colin Sullivan, and I had grown tired of having two arms. Then (peering into my soul, its bottom stained with too much me) my arm dissolved, on the spot. While my dog watched it disappear.
The dog having ever after glared at me, the rest of her life. She did not trust a one-armed man as far as she could throw a one-armed man. She regarded me with the sort of disdain reserved for cats, Dalmatians, skateboards. Empty bowls. I had become a pariah.
A pariah! I say. A one-armed primate with a typing affliction that cannot, must not continue — as typing with one arm is exhausting. You should see my fingertips.
Not to mention my stunning new wardrobe or how my arm becomes a cockroach-head, when the fancy strikes. You should see that, too.
“My stunning new wardrobe!” … I repeat, having run out of things to say, because I did not plan on posting today. “Blow me to Bermuda!”
No no, fair illustrator. Beware that dirty mind of yours. Not blow me IN Bermuda. Just to.
“Blow me to Bermuda!” being a line from The Sword in the Stone as well as a song by a band called Wind Walkers. A stanza from that song goes, “Who needs death when I have you? Who drains the color from a vibrant room?”
I know precisely who drains the color from a vibrant room. I DO. Usually by proxy. By misfit, deadpan characters nobody understands. Through evil tennis balls and such, wandering the dark and fuzzy woods …
I can’t tell if it’s a good song, btw. I bet not. I bet it’s as bad as all the other bad songs in the history of bad songs. Therefore: I can’t take it anymore! Therefore: Go ahead and BLOW ME TO BERMUDA.
And that’s where I live now. Bermuda. Where one-armed men breathe easy. Where dark and fuzzy woods never interfere. That’s the moral of the story. When and if you find yourself short an arm, FLEE … into your lightest primate visions.
You really should visit. The white-sand beaches are lovely this time of year. Right before they blossom into the fluffiest pink coast you ever did see.
You’ll have to put up with tourists, of course. You’ll have to contend with crowds, and vermin. Lots and lots of vermin, doing verminous things.
Make sense?
— Colin Sullivan, one-armed ape
Kicker: Had to be done, coming to a cryptic animation studio near you …
Index: The first paragraph parodies the start of The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. The fourth paragraph parodies the start of Bluets, by Maggie Nelson.
If you haven’t read the latter, it’s wonderful. A 200-page lament to the color blue.
If you haven’t read the former, well, maybe that’s because you're an upended cockroach just like me. Maybe it’s high time we stop wiggling our thin jagged legs in the air and right ourselves. Stop complaining. Get going.
After all, it’s better to have lived and died a hard-shelled vermin than never to have lived and died at all. That’s the real moral of this story. Plus, never sleep with a canine — unless you’ve got plenty of roach-killer nearby.
Xoxo.
My first time to read your writing. Blown away...
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻