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Sensation

jabmist
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 15:50:28 GMT

Imagine an itch on your forearm. Not pain, not a tickle, but something in-between. Maybe it was a bug bite, maybe it is an old scar, whatever it is really isn't the point. The point is -- you have an itch. Now imagine it is winter, you are in a heavy jacket, new fleece and down. You think of yourself as a marshmallow when you wear it. It covers your arm, so you can not get to the itch. Now put on a pair of gloves, no make that a pair of mittens, big bulky ones, the kind that children wear, with little clips to the sleeves of their jackets so they don't loose them. Between the jacket and the mittens, there is no way to get to the itch. You can't rub it, or even put pressure on it. You can look at your arm, picture exactly where the itch is located, even imagining how it must look-- maybe it is infected, maybe it is red and inflamed. Something as simple as a single nerve misfiring and sending the wrong message to your brain. Or maybe it is the skin on your arm warning the brain that something is wrong and needs to be attended to. So simple, yet it takes all of your focus, all of your thoughts, all of the attention you should be putting on your child outside with you, playing in the snow. Instead of enjoying the time playing, enjoying the company of a giggling child, making snow angels or sledding down a hill, you stand, still as a statue. A single thought running through your head. Not even a thought, more of a single awareness in your head. The itch. It is everything, it has become your entire universe. As you become all engrossed by this single, laser like focus of experience, you remember, the itch is not real, the itch is not there, the itch can not be there, because your arm is not there. It was lost in the desert, taken by a faceless enemy who planted the bomb. The itch can not be real since metal and plastic can not itch. But for one brief moment that itch was your complete universe, and in that instant... you were complete.

NutterButter
Wed, 28 Oct 2015 22:32:05 GMT

I love this