ITCH

By

Michael Egenolf

 

If only I could scratch my nose. My kingdom for a good scratch. The itch is hot and burns me deeply. This constant urge. This constant yearn for relief is the only thing which I am surely certain of. That and my sentience.

But is it really enough to know that you are? Not who you are or what you are, just THAT you are?  It does not feel like enough to me. I need to know more. Not just THAT I am, but who I am. What am I doing here? How did I come to these terrible circumstances. Or are these even terrible circumstances? Did I just come into being this way? Is this how I have always been? Have I even existed before today? I must have. The only rationale I can offer to support this is my understanding of language. I do not see how I could have just come into being and possess the ability to form coherent thoughts and dialogue mentally without prior training or practice. So I have existed before this current conscious moment. Have I been here for days? Weeks? Years? Minutes?

This infernal itch. It will surely drive me mad. There must be something I can utilize to address this issue. I search my memory for a tool. “Finger” comes to mind. Though I have no recollection as to what that pertains to. But somewhere I understand that finger is to scratch. I must have a finger here somewhere.

I lie here in stasis for time uncomprehending. The moments crawl by in metered eternal clicks. Slow. Ceaseless.

Arms. What are those? Surely I have none. I cannot feel where they would be. I cannot feel how I would move them. Legs. The same. Nothing.

What am I? Am I human? I appear to be. I interact with them. At least I think I do. I understand them although I find no ability to respond. I have no voice. My eyes no longer see, if in fact, they ever have.

No hands, no feet. No limbs or extremities of any kind. At least not that I have sensory capabilities of. So what am I?

What is my function? What more could a being ask for than to understand its purpose. Am I serving some greater good? Some greater god? Or am I just … being.

Post. Scratching post. Something created into being for the purpose of a feline sating itch impulses by rhythmic friction.  Sounds delightful.

Is that what I am? Feline? No, I do not believe so. I do not believe that the feline has developed the ability for speech, or the thought process of language, at least. No. I am not a feline.

How can I be certain that I even exist. Am I just a thought pattern floating through space aimlessly?  I do not see the rationality behind this. There must be a reason. Some coherent pattern to explain my reason for being.

If only I could scratch. Yes. That must be the reason. My purpose. I am here to scratch. Or maybe I am here to be scratched. Hmm. The rub. Am I the scratcher or the scratchee? Well, this principle must be further examined. I feel the need to scratch. I must be the scratcher. However, I have no knowledgeable ability to perform said scratching. Then again, I need to be scratched. Therefore, surely I am the scratchee. But I have no knowledge of how to find this.

Maybe that is the purpose. To find the ability to scratch. To learn what it means to scratch. Or to learn what it means to be an itch?

Yes, that must be it.

Is this then failure to accomplish said goal? How long has the searching been going on? There is no possession of short-term recall abilities. There is no recording of the duration of said search up until this moment.  Has the search, in fact, been previously successful, only to have been unremembered and unrecalled moments later? Is this search doomed to recurring failure? Repetition required for each mistake, each unrecalled discovery, each endeavor re-acted upon like a stereo needle stuck in its repetitive scratched groove?

Scratched groove? Is that it? A groove? No. Most certainly not. There may be the ability as a sentient being to be… how do they say… groove-ey? But no, a groove is not what this existence is about.  No. definitely not.

At least, it is not believed to be so.

Itch!

Itch!

Over and over again. Insanity.

Or is sanity already absent? Has it ever really been there? Is sanity required for sentience? Do the insane know they exist? Does anything I do, or think, or think I do, matter in the absolute least. A thought keeps coming to the surface. “in another hundred years, who’s gonna give a crap”. I do not believe to be the elicitor of said comment. But it is comprehendible, none the less. It can be “dug”, the place where it originates from. Another attractive metaphor.

Itch.

Itch.

Ceaseless. Neverending. Unyielding. This could  go on and on. Or maybe this has been, on and on, eternal.

The search for answers goes on. One thing that can be viewed as certain is the next conscious moment experienced will bring all the same burning question again. The answer may never come… the quest for identity may never—

     “Now what does it say?”

     “G  and L still aren’t working.”

     “I told you not to remove the ram chip before the de-bug program finished. I’m gonna                                                                                                            

       have a bitch of a time getting her up and running again”.

      “Sorry. My bad”.

      “I said it a million times ‘when a glitch happens running memory update… do not         

       remove the chips until its debugged’. Got it?”

     “Got it.”

     A metallic click snaps into place.

    “There. She’s up and running again. Let’s see how good she runs now?”

 

I am a she!