2024-06-21 - 3.5- To Ponder

As It grows minute by hour older, It grows quieter within the chatter that surrounds It. Or more, It's words become less common. Emotions travel freely- surprise, hurt, as it darts mentally from sharp or sudden contact, always looping back from just the edges of reach; happiness, affection, when It's mind meets a Someone's; worry, want, when Mother goes, now It knows that not returning is an option- but words come carefully chosen. Selected one by one for the best fit, the least risk of hurt, so far as It's limited understanding will allow.

Such a tendency leaves spaces of time between statements, to Someones, to Mother, that allow for plenty thinking on such matters as the twisting currents of language, how one could be lonely among so many, the differences among others.

Differences, yes, that is a concept old as It can remember but somehow fresh and new. The differences that come from what It does not yet know is called personality are readily apparent from interactions with the Someones- the intense curiosity of Heat, the companionship of Eagerness, such things are fascinating- but not what circles It's mind.

There are, It has learned over It's short life, larger and smaller minds. Those of the Someones who stay are smallest, but shine bright in the nothingness. Mother's mind is largest, brightest, warmest, with the other larger minds trailing close behind. And then there are Others, far smaller- though still larger than the other small Someones- and faded for reasons it cannot yet understand.

There are Someones under differing rules. Mother should do one thing, but Someones should do another? Can do another? Again, It cannot yet understand. There is a difference between these things, but not one It can discern, or at least does not know it can.

But then, there is one that It thinks may be simple enough to parse. There is Mother, who comes and goes, who was once all there was and still is the source of knowledge and warmth. There is Father, a word It does not fully grasp but that is spoken to It and the others in a similar way to Mother, who is Important for all Father goes for vast times and comes only briefly. And they are different. In ways It understands, in ways It has yet to parse, and in a way that feels not quite so strange as it maybe did before.

This is what It rolls in It's mind. Difference between Mother and Father, between various Someones. Restrictive, freeing, right, wrong, right, wrong, right-

For now.

The tumbling in Her mind settles, pebbles kicked up by a whirlpool, leaving shiny bits of understanding behind. She is right. He is wrong. It is, not wrong. Just 'not in the moment'. And that is right.

There is for now.