| Our experience of the hedgehog is limited
to the file with which one smoothes its quills, if the beast
will stand still for such treatment. Or if the neighbors volunteer
to restrain it. Their motives are apt to be as murky as our
own. Sure, we do good and proper things when the opportunity
presents itself. We buy cakes for the disadvantaged and deliver
them with ribbons tied at the top. And a Mariachi band in
tow to help dispel any gloom that might otherwise mar the
proceedings. In fact, you'll find any number of examples
here that defy convention, that suggest we are not as dismally
self-oriented as everyone claims. This is why the comely women
go to one island or another. They know spells that eliminate
the competition as effortlessly as one lances a boil. But
they will not share them with us for fear that the word will
get out among the Swedes. And suddenly you've got people
knocking on your door day and night. They're asking
to use the restroom. Or they wander out into the narrow fields.
Those crowded with plain-wrapped moths and the fever trees
sloughing their bark off for the weekend. And we're
all a little vulnerable, what with the flesh coming in for
calumny and outright assault by those who don't wear
it. Or claim they don't wear it for reasons that have
something to do with claustrophobia, I imagine. Or that nearly
universal desire to be considered extraordinary. An individual
of such unique ability and features, the rest of us line up
in endless rows just to get a glimpse. To call home with details
of what we've seen. And what we merely thought we saw
when other people got in the way. Those with such a love of
miniature things, their scale models look like misfirings
of the mind. Like cobwebs with nothing at the center. With
no respect for what Otto Rank terms the causa sui,
which is a concept we are so fond of, we will abandon just
about everything else to keep it around. Our silky terriers.
All those jigsaw puzzles depicting the modern suspension bridges
of Spain.
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