Young son will hopefully now think twice about leaving things scattered all about. “You need to pick all this up,” I said and said again. Then rammed my foot right into a dumbbell of mine he’d taken from next to my desk and left lying in the middle of the floor.
Ripped a toenail right off. Almost. It hung by a gelatinous gooey couple of threads and I sat and grumbled as I finished the job.
H.o.p., cowed, brought me a cheery bandaid.
To be fair, the toenail was already damaged as a while back I’d rammed the same toe into H.o.p.’s keyboard stand and bruised it black and blue. Still, it was an ugly, bloody business so it was not quite as ready as all that to be free.
I’m reminded why I always wore steel-toed boots up until a couple years ago and didn’t often walk around barefoot.
I briefly examined the toenail. Really kind of lovely in its own way. And I thought of the person I used to know who saved all their toenail clippings in a shrine.
I threw the toenail away.
In a parallel universe, I’m given to understand that an alternate me, which had observed the dumbbell, had picked it up and thus saved the toenail.
In honor of the latest mathematical discovery confirming parallel universes, H.o.p. and I are watching videos on the subject.
Perhaps there is a universe in which I enshrined the toenail.
But I’m skeptical of how we currently attempt to conceive of, reason with and put a face on these parallel universes.
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