Chain
It is the anvil dangling by a rusty chain.
It is the one kept above your head.
It’s not real, of course.
If by real you mean matter and mass.
But you know it’s right there always.
It dangles over your head.
It can snap and fall with no warning.
You worry it will be painful, be messy, be fatal.
Because you’ve had other things drop on you before.
And the last one almost did you in.
It nearly mangled your hope.
The memory moulds you.
Inevitably.
It moulds the way you move.
Inevitably.
It moulds the way you maintain your equilibrium.
Inevitably.
It moulds your body into an unrecognizable contortion.
Inevitably.
You remember what Said said of imperial projects.
You recall the reductiveness of demonizing the “Other”.
You know how being placed with the Other reduces you to a name.
A name alien to your own existence, your lived reality.
A name that strips down your being, your space, your dignity.
You know he had no idea how universal his knowledge was.
Devices are many and varied.
All simple machines have utility.
All simple machines can be a weapon.
Wounds from each can hurt all the same.
You look around and you see your colleagues.
Do they know about this?
Do they know the history, the heft of that anvil?
Do they grasp their complicity in this dangling anvil?
Do they know they’re holding a chain?
Do they know that once they know they’ll let go even when they didn’t mean to?
So you stay silent.
Do they?
Maybe they do.
Don’t they?
Maybe they don’t.
Maybe it’s a Nice game to see who can keep Good the longest.
Maybe you just don’t want to know they know.
Ever.
Because knowing hurts just as badly as the anvil.
It is the anvil.
But you do want to know, if only to know what goes through their head.
Do you pass, or do you fail?
Are you sentenced to a lifetime of ‘not. like. us.’?
To them, are you even human?
Or are you that Other?
If the obstruction weren’t there, then it would be a non-starter.
Then there would be no anvil.
And the stress of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting…
You know what?
There would be no stress from this.
Because the chain would never have hoisted this above you.
Because it would simply be a good little anvil.
Because it would docilely wait to get the working day done.
If only the social obstruction wasn’t there.
If only the name were not named.
If only the ruinous, vile men who tainted it had not abducted you.
Into their narcissistic heaven.
Into your existential hell.
If only they weren’t so eager to whore themselves for a name.
If only they weren’t so cocky to drag good people below with their dead weight.
Oh, but that’s impossible.
They covet what they think you have.
It is their goal to fully possess it.
But you really don’t have it.
You have something else.
You have something ineffable.
They just don’t believe you.
If only they hadn’t handed the chain to the world!
Speaking of, where did they go?
Why aren’t there anvils over their head?
Oh, right.
They made the chains.
They set up the chains.
They flawed the chains.
They know the chains will break anyway.
They split to their precious new homes.
They wait for their trap to smash you away.
They will return for carnage and spoils.
Right, got it. Thanks for clearing that up.
Said?
L’Engle?
McAloon?
von Linné is to blame.
The name makes the imaginary more real than real.
But you do not allow yourself a name.
You cannot have a name.
Because to be named is to have the anvil drop.
You cannot explain this this.
To explain means to name.
And dead weight fills your heart.
It weighs on your soul.
It weighs on your meat.
It weighs on your spirit.
It weighs down your life.
You know this is intractable.
You know this is a draw-lose proposition.
You know this is a clever little social game.
You know this is killing you.
From the inside.
People cannot know why you hurt.
You cannot speak of why an object last fell to your head.
You cannot say how it took years of recovery to stand again.
To tell them is to be named.
To tell them is to have a slipped chain.
There is only one way to duck the anvil.
They must ask.
They must be ready to ask.
They must be ready to risk being hurt by the anvil.
They must know what it means to trust and be trusted.
They must understand why they are even holding that chain.
They must know that to be ready to ask why is to take a risk —
that by letting go, it will hurt you and it will hurt them, too.
Even if the only casualty is you.
If they are ready to ask,
If?
… then you are ready to define what you could not.
… then they are ready to accept why the anvil exists.
… then both of you are ready to have that tête-à-tête.
Unfettered.
Sincerely.
Endearingly.
Hopefully.
Candidly.
Humanly.
A dangerous time ended, no longer may you stay so stoic.
Avoiding that thirty-two-feet-per-second-per-second crush.
No longer waiting to be an instant fatality.
No longer waiting for that inglorious end.
But they never ask.
So this remains a dangerous time.
And again, the anvil sways a little.
You see the motion.
You tense up once more.
You close both your eyes.
You hope it’s not that time.
Not yet.
Please, not yet.