| I live in a studio apartment, almost alone with the exception of my cat, She-Ra, Princess of Power. I keep the lights off and the mind alert, constantly monitoring my body for deceptions, interceptions, and degradation. If there is a synapse charging, I want to know about it; I want to be the one to sign on the dotted line.
It's like the darkness that surrounds my eyes is a vast computer screen; and I'm constantly logging in, monitoring the system log file, and investigating my denial of service attacks.
"I think that stomach evocation will be the end of me, She-Ra."
She-Ra is a year old, slimish. Dark black hair, which radiates red in the sunlight, iridescent oiliness. I like her pouch best.
"Oh, She-Ra look at you with your pouch. You're gonna grow up to be a fatty boombalatti." I got up off the couch, noting how my lower intestine oozed a laborious squelk as I did his, and got on the bright red and orange mandala rug where She-Ra lay.
"Oh! You coootie! Lemme see that tum tum!" I rolled her over, and rubbed it, laughing madly, and looking deep into her green eyes, she said:
"Stop."
Aural emissions in my home are very few. I almost always cause them. Occasionally the cat lets out at merp or something, but no one ever talks. Instrumental music. No answering machine. No television. No talking.
"Stop it this instant!" My hand was still on her bulge.
"Wha.. wha.." lost in stutters "go-go-going on on?"
"Look at you, like a little Woody Allen."
"Woody Allen?"
"Look at yourself, you're a loser!"
"But... but, She-Ra... you love me!"
"Boy are you dumb!"
Her words, the tone of her voice all seemed familiar now. As if I'd been listening to her talking to me all my life, only now beginning to understand. "Either that or I've got the voice of Pippi Longstocking," she said. And she was right, she did have Pippi's voice.
And then it washed over me like ammonia. ....
"I am Pippi Longstocking! If you say it fast it's funny.... Pippi, Pippi, Longstocking, oh how I love my funny name. I'm only nine, I always live alone inside my Papa's House until he comes back home and I have special friends of course, a monkey and a horse, who share in my adventures too." -- Pippi in the South Seas
"You see, we're meant to play this game for eternity, whether you were a pesky pirate, or Taylor Singletary - you are still my subordinate, and an adult. No matter what happens, I am the free-spirited decision maker."
"But why in the world are we having this conversation right now?"
"It's always been right now."
"If I'm Mr. Nielson, than who is Old Man?" She-Ra moved her feline eyes upward, towards heaven. Why hadn't I thought of this before? Her eyes returned to mine:
"Don't touch my pouch," she said. My stomach stops rumbling, and She-Ra is asleep on the chair by the door. I walk over to her, eyeing her pouch. I get really close and start to love her.
"Stop."
"What?"
"Stop."
"What? You can't talk..." | 
