56

He is in a world of dirt. He is buried. Yet, he can breathe. He clutches the hand. He has come to think of it, by this point, not as "his" hand but as "the" hand. It is interesting, he thinks, while suspended in the dirt, how little time it takes to disassociate. He has lost "his" hand, and then he has found "his" hand, but now, it has become "the" hand. He can recognize it, he thinks -- with his own ridiculous brand of humor -- because he sees the back of it, which he knows so very well that he compares how well he knows all other things to how he knows this. But now, he reflects, again, that "his" hand might not actually still be the same as "the" hand. When has "his" hand turned into "the" hand? Perhaps when it has turned into a fish. But it has only turned into a fish when he has begun remembering... and, in particular, when he has remembered catching a trout with his father. He begins to laugh. And it is a laughter born of the abject. It is a laughter not of humor but of purgation. He laughs for a long time, and he laughs more loudly than he is aware. And then another sound begins to accompany the laughter, perhaps to respond to it. But he does not care, at this point, because he is all laughter. His body is an instrument of laughter. He does not hear the other sound, the sound of the digging which is being done to find him and to unbury that instrument. And, perhaps, when the instrument is unearthed, it will turn back into a body. But whether it turns back into "his" body or "a" body, remains to be seen. This is the thought that sits somewhere in that instrument he has become. And, obscured as this thought is by the noise of laughter, it is the only thought of which he is aware.