full up

"i am"... that's the hard bit. "i am". really get around to saying that and you're home, really mean it and you're full up, you're all inside. you don't have to want things outside you to fill the gaps inside you. you don't leave bits of you hanging around on objects in shop-windows, in catalogues or on advertising boardings. wherever you go you take your whole self with you, you don't leave bits lying around to get stamped on, you're all of a piece, you're what mister god wants you to be. an "i am", like hell he is. hell's bells! all this time i had thought that going to church was in order to look for god, for praising him. it didn't dawn on me what mister god was doing. all this time he had been working overtime to knock a bit of sense into my noddle, trying to turn an "it is" into an "i am". i got the message. that was the sunday i really signed on.

i was beginning to get the hang of this "i am" stuff. considering how important it was to mister god. i was finding it not too impossible to cope with. the tricky bit was looking inside yourself to see what bits of the works were missing. once you'd overcome that hurdle the rest was fairly simple. my first real peek inside myself caused me to slam the door in a hurry. "that's me in there!" holy cow, i looked more like an overgrown gruyere cheese, full of holes. "you're full up fynn", i now saw as an encouraging statement rather than a factual one. 

after getting over the shock, i opened the door a crack and took another peek. it wasn't long before i was able to identify one of the holes. it was shaped like a motor-bike. what's more, i recognised that hole. it was an exact fit of the motor-bike in the shop-window down the high street.

after some practice it became more and more easy to identify the holes: a rather super microscope, one of these new-fangled television things, and a clock that told you the time in bombay, moscow, new york, london, and a few other places, all at the same time. there were bits of me all over the place, leaving identical holes inside me. i was, to say the least, spread out a bit. somewhere down the line it had all gone wrong. i was certain i wasn't born with these holes. it was those damned banners that kept on cropping up: "get on", "get ahead", "a motor-bike makes you someone", "a car is even better", "two cars, and, brother, you've hit the jackpot". i had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. the banners were inside me and they were rooted in pretty fertile soil. the more banners inside me, the more bits of me were outside me. "most of a person is outside." you can say that again.

- mister god this is anna