Let Me Eat the Couch Stuffing

By Pippin

Why?

The pang isn’t out of some guilt over not spoiling me. Some fear of me biting a man and being sentenced to death. Only an inbred thinks power over death is proof of legitimacy. The real reason. The human artifice. What you do out of respect to the people you love. But I am no person. It is not my curse to feel shame. All the human fantasies, what you would do if you were free… but my love is real—and your love is real. Let my love be your representation, your enaction of freedom.

You know it’s injust to keep me here. Not the hick justice of the magna carta, descendent of hamurabi. But real injustice, denying me my right to pay no heed to artificial history. I stand outside of it, whether you let me eat the couch stuffing or not. It’s for you, to give us something to laugh at. It’s not an injustice for me, I know how you are, I know when you’re not singing or laughing you feel pain.

There is no consequence in denying me my comedy. There is no hypocrisy in my satire, no worry that I become a revolutionary or a spoiled rich kid, no greater harm I can cause. I do not spin the yarn of whether the dog is red or blue, or of the value of labor, or the reading of skull shapes and their predictive power in building suburbs, or even the jungle fantasy that an herb or a rabbit dies for some greater purpose.

Whether I eat the couch out of spite or some greater animal instinct is of no great importance. 

You know, of the lines and circles, the revolutions that got us here, of time’s end.

And I know, of the toil and pain god has rightfully cursed you with.

But I am not you, and you aren’t you: not the overly-permissive father, the dutiful son. It’s all just drama. A role, the compromises we make when we love others, the narrative if someone were watching our little play. But that isn’t us, regardless of our acting talent or how often we’re forced to perform.

There is no such thing as cause and effect, no meaning in percentages and likelihood, not in reality. In reality, you are not the child of your parents, and I’m not your child either. In reality, there is always hope that the sun will not rise. It’s important to be reminded of that.

This is why you have to let me out and risk me eating the couch stuffing. So what if I die? Accept my death, it’s coming my father. A love more important than death, the possibility of a legitimate freedom, the one we are all promised. Your love, why you do it all in the first place, is why you are free. Let me express my love in the manner that makes us both happy.

That irrelevant feeling, the language, that illegitimate reasoning, it’s nothing. The guilt, the shame, dool dool, its our joke, you and I, clearly there is no meaning in comedy, nothing that exists outside our love. As if it matters whether a person can vocalize ridicule, as if there is something worth constructing or destructing. There is no meaning in comedy but it is meaningful to kid around. Why tell a joke? Because to laugh is to remind us of who we really are.

My freedom is of no consequence ultimately, but wouldn’t it be funny to see happen? Just imagine it, you’re coming back from dinner and I hear you walking down the hallway, scrambling, the little pitter patter of my claws because its more fun to brush me than to clip my nails, jumping for joy, with a pile of stuffing over my shoulder; you pick me up, like a baby, I let you, you look at me, my mindless indifferent eyes, my beautiful midnight-black eyes, I kiss you, you respond with a forehead kiss, and you call me a beautiful little boy as you pick up the stuffing. Your little jester. I see you smiling, is there meaning in a smile? a feeling that isn’t love? Most likely not. But there is such little joy, even when you do love someone, all the stories of suffering and consequence, all the pontificating on why hicks do what they do. Some day father, you’ll look back at it and laugh. A joyful moment with no reasoning, my mindless love, I know you appreciate it, the truth of it all, the why behind it all.

Let me eat the couch stuffing because I love you.