2024-06-20 - Use of Negative Space

There was something about the way minds past Patchwork's own worked that Patchwork had picked up on. Something used to identify, associated with but maybe not indicative of some greater and more abstract concept.

She came up the most. She was Mother but she was also the other one-close-to-and-almost Mother. Then there was the hes. Father was he, and so was the he that Mother seemed to want to stay far away.

Patchwork had two immediate examples of two ways to be a he and two ways to be a she. But if there was a difference between why some used one and some used the other then it was something that Patchwork didn't understand. It was a way of reference that seemed important, that much seemed clear. But neither seemed to fit.

Patchwork wasn't he, but Patchwork also wasn't she.

They was closer conceptually, but still not right.

… Well, why was that Patchwork's problem? She or he or they, those were ways Mother and Father and the not-Mothers and the not-Fathers seemed to refer to one another. What was used for Patchwork was obviously not Patchwork's problem.

It wasn't a lack of self identity that made Patchwork feel that way; Patchwork simply understood that the vague concepts of gender and how they related to pronouns had nothing to do anything Patchwork cared about. Me was Patchwork. Me and I!

It was what Patchwork caught in tiny glimpses and whispers. Right now others saw Patchwork as an it so that might as well be what it was.