How to be a sustainable piece of china, or, How to pick up the pieces
You are dropped. You may have felt the toppling nudge or might not even remember anything of the toppling itself, only the complete sudden absence beneath you of your wooden shelf, on which just moments before your perfect base had rested, as if forever.
There you were feeling all ornamental, all precious, and here you find yourself acquainted with a stone floor reality, and the now worthless pieces of you scattered all over. What do you do then?
You tell all your shattered pieces you are a sustainable piece of china of course, and begin to pick up and piece the pieces back together again.
This is how you go about it.
You search for all the big pieces first. They didn’t shatter completely for a reason: they were the strongest structurally, and if you’re lucky and haven’t fallen from too great a height, there might be enough of these to piece together a skeletal frame.
Then you seek out the medium sized bits, and try to insert them into yourself, jigsaw style. Painstakingly please; there is nothing more scarring or jarring than the misfit jigsaw piece forced into the wrong shaped hole. And if, then, with the big and medium bits back in place, there is enough of you, and all but the absolute decimated pieces left, go ahead and dab large dollops of yuhu or industrial strength glue on the chipped lips or the grazed middle parts.
The smallest pieces of you will of course have mingled their whiteness with the beige, gray and brown dust: those impurities you will now just have to sweep up with a brush and pan along with your own specks. Then, sprinkle directly from the dustpan over the glue dolloped areas. Leave yourself to dry for a while. And there you go: you are whole again.
You will have to keep in mind though that this works, and progressively less, the first seven or eight times you are dropped, or over the course of a decade or so. After that, being dropped any more could turn you from an intricate decorative into a rather shabby ashtray, if not much less.
Why does this remind me of the matter-of-fact voice of Jamaica Kincaid?
Please consider the following changes:
“There you were feeling ornamental and precious, and here you find yourself acquainted with a stone floor reality, and the now worthless pieces of you scattered EVERYWHERE. What do you do then?”
I deleted the repetition of “all” in the lines above. It was giving the paragraph a colloquial feel.
I liked this short piece. My reading was primarily symbolic though. Would you like to tell us a little bit about your inspiration for and execution of the piece?
Noor
This is very different from your usual style, and pleasantly so. As Noor said, my reading of it was symbolic too, each one of us is a decorative piece of china, eh?
Do share more work with us when you are free and we’ll see what RIL-ers think about it. No one here writes in your aristocratic, never-ending-sentences style, it’ll be a change. Lets see what people here have to say.
Btw, Noor, this is my favourite teacher
Ah, I liked this. I think it is meant to be read symbolically.
We’re all fragile, empty vessels that gradually get filled up with tiny droplets of time that stay with us…
Thats part of my interpretation. Taking it a step further than the piece intended, I think. But thats the feeling I got from it.
Good stuff.
Jawad,
Your piece reads like an instruction manual with a sarcastic twist.
The terse tone, the satiral shades and stunning short sentences all build toward portraying the deeper insecurities/fragilities in such a beautiful way.
I loved these lines:
“You are dropped.”
“…go ahead and dab large dollops of yuhu or industrial strength glue on the chipped lips or the grazed middle parts.”
“After that, being dropped any more could turn you from an intricate decorative into a rather shabby ashtray, if not much less.”
This for me was a very interesting description of emotional healing. How every time we are wrecked emotionally, we piece ourselves together over time, but it’s never the same. You’re a changed person. I do however believe that it isn’t a journey to being an ashtray. I think we are better for it.
Teacher? Hmm, we have a professional in our midst. Rejoice. Looking forward to reading more of your work. And nice to meet you, Jawad. Your first post has made quite an impression. It’s funny how we are introduced by our work at RIL. It almost seems like the friendships we build here would be stronger, because we get to know each other’s inspirations and writing styles.
a professional, hardly, Sidra and a few others on here might tell you, but probably won’t because i am a member of their secret society. and they are most kind, and all have literary superpowers: give them a room and they will make it rain, and words and chocolate cakes will float in the dark. from what i can tell, many of you here may have similar powers.
so, thank you all for your very kind words, the warm welcome and for reading my words so deeply. as for the piece, i agree with all of you: its symbolic, and all your readings work for me! other than that, perhaps I was responding to what Fraz spoke of, or Nietzsche’s dictum, “that which does not kill me, only makes me stronger.” perhaps that which does not kill me only leaves me weaker for that which can kill me more easily next, or at a consequent, time. are we physically and psychologically not fairly fragile, could the ashtray not represent one existential possibility in a dropzone?
i apologise for not being able to participate fully, though i am hooked to RIL ab. i am currently locked up in a detention cell and listed in the Kafkan registers as a missing person. the ape guarding the door says I may be let out shortly.
i shall try to slip you some words from my cell, nonetheless, and look forward to reading more of yours.
ouch….
Well said Jawad, and agreed that an ashtray is definitely an existential possibility. In the US, Nietzsche’s dictum has been modified as “that which does not kill me, will make my insurance go up!”