That-of-that

Excerpt: That-of-that | Passages in weariness

It is in my hand now, present and ready. Present-at-hand and ready to work. It is a hammer but I know where it’s headed, and that part shouldn’t concern anyone who has plans to live forever. There’s a hand and a hammer anyway, if they fit each other, my trick will work alright.

It is in my hand now. If I can still call my hand mine, then the thing my hand holds should be mine as well. I put the hammer away, yet my hand folds to grab something. Another hand? A bosom? Maybe a hammer? Is my hand always partially outside me? Isn’t it like life itself, always found outside. I would have had a life if I could tell, I who? The one whose life it is, or the one living it?

It is in my hands now. It is something and it seems to be in someone’s hands, but neither the thing in itself, nor the hand or whose hand it must be, can prove anything.

Strange, finding hands, a thing in them and thinking; something has to be said and done about it. What to do with things which come done, like hands, hammers, dicks, and people?

My left hand is gone numb again, so I am holding it in my right hand, completing the circle. People the people, hammer the hammer, and hand the hand.

All things are found when gone. All things shun invisibility when gone and present themselves—at hand. There’s no need for a hand or a hammer at last.

My hand is tired of thinking like a hand. My other hand might follow, then I. Were there a hand, a hammer and an I.