The Jester

If I'm being honest, I felt this lost before quarantine started: directionless, restless, embarrassed. I've spent so much time and energy and money working on these projects that feel so goddamn futile and absurd now. People claim to love my writing, but no one reads my work when it's longer than a Facebook status or about any subject beyond gutting myself. The only ticket people seem to be buying is one to the Museum of My Past Traumas.

When I was a child, my father would do Family Blessings once a year. He would go around the dinner table and tell each of us what we would be if we were a flower, or a Bible verse, or an element of nature. What I remember the most was who we would be as a Member of the King's Court.

He told my sister that she'd be the Princess who woke up early in the morning and took her stage coach and horses into the forest, spend all day in nature, then come home and share the story of her day with the King.

He told me I would be the Court Jester.

Perhaps he was right. I belong indoors, mining myself for usefulness. I am the careful observer, the loyal listener, the sponge, the mirror, the book of answers, the stand up comic, the dose of reality.

I was designed to exist at the beck and call of the Audience, kept on a short leash. I serve a specific purpose, which is tricky to navigate when the Players never stop changing the Rules.

I am only ever desired in small doses. I have no stage coach, no horses, no forest to withdraw to. I have no King to confide in.

I have only my eyes, my words, my hands, calloused though they are from dragging my little soapbox around. I wish I could crawl inside it sometimes, that little box. Perhaps the people could give it a knock or two when my services are required once more, like a genie and her bottle. ...I too am full of magic.

They could take my eyes, but it would not stop me from seeing what they do.

They could take my ears, but it would not stop me from hearing their cries for help.

They could take my tongue, but my words would still find a way.

But to take my hands? These blistered paws, these hooves, these worker's hands?

That I would not survive.

For without my hands, I have lost the means by which I give my magic. Without my hands, I have no way to move what is inside to the people who most need it. It is not the language of the jester that is crucial - it is her hands who tell the story. Without them, she is lost.