In the Presence of My Parts

Last night I was summoned by a group of hair cells in my ear. They knelt in fear when I appeared to them and (after several tedious attempts to compliment me) asked me to hide my physical form as it was too much for them to bear. But I did not know how to do this. I didn’t even know I could be summoned in this way. Finding myself as confused as them I offered to hide myself behind the membranes rising above them.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“We ask of you,” one of them said. “You who turns darkness into light to give us your blood so we may live forever.”

This is what I was afraid of. How do I begin, by exposing the flaws in their mythology or explaining the problems of immortality? Do I respond at all, and risk encouraging this kind of summoning and the ridiculous back and forth it would surely prompt, knowing of course that it is not only a waste of my time but an empty indulgence for them, entangling their lives in circular speculations when their lives—apparent from the unending supply of dead hair around my house—last only a fraction as long as my own, and would be better spent engaged in more immediate and stimulating activities?

“My blood is already inside each of you. It is sufficient for living as you see fit,” I said.

“Forgive us. But we do not understand your riddles. Our minds are made of much smaller parts than your own,” said one of them.

“Do you think you could lend me a thousand dollars,” said another one. This was becoming a rather hopeless situation.

John Niebuhr is a solar energy director, lyricist, and a creative writing instructor at Burbank Adult School. His poetry has appeared in Allegory Ridge, Meow Meow Pow Pow, and other small presses.