But
sobriety brought out in him something else, something for which he could not
ever have been prepared. Resident in the wider world only a few years, and with
a sense of if not family at least home ever at his back, he found that nominal
space to which he now returned insufficient, and unable to bear the weight of
those demands he placed upon it. Infrequently at first, and then more and more
often, he would with some alarm hear his own voice saying
Skunk:
I want to go home.
even
though there could be no other word to match the exact temporal space in which
he lived.
Skunk:
I want to go home.
repeated
to the bewilderment of those few friends who persisted in the ongoing
monitoring of his progress.
cog:
What is it, Skunk? What’s wrong?
Skunk:
I want to go home.
cog:
But… You mean back down south? Sell this place and move back down south?
Skunk
(sighing): No, no. It isn’t…
making
a clickclick noise with his tongue between his teeth.
Skunk:
It isn’t that. I just… I feel like I I, I want to go home.
cog:
But you are home. This is your home.
Skunk:
Well then… I want to be somewhere else, so I can come back here.
cog:
I don’t get it, what do you mean? You mean that, you mean home is,
both
palms up at his face, paralysed by confusion
cog:
home is, you think home is somewhere that you’re not?
Skunk:
Yes, yes, it’s something like that, yes, but not me, it isn’t, I’m not
the
then
finally distilling the thought to its essence:
Skunk:
This would be home if I wasn’t here.
