One-year-old me is seven-year-old you.
Two-year-old me is eight-year-old you.
I am you, you are me. A ready-made with its beginning and end already determined.
“Who are you?”
And then, all of a sudden, ‘you’ appeared in front of ‘me’ and asked.
“I am you.”
I answered, like they had instructed me.
My existence is as your duplicate. I exist here to fill the empty void you can’t fill.
“No, I don’t think that’s it.”
‘I’ said to ‘myself’.
“You aren’t me. ‘You’ are just ‘you’.”
As I did so, ‘I’ hugged ‘myself’.
“Can you hear it, our beating hearts?”
“Yes.”
The two pulses are overlapping against each other. *Ba-dum, ba-dum* *Ba-dum, ba-dum*
“One is 「your」 beat.”
“One is 「my」 beat.”
Ahh.
It was like that.
“Who are you?”
The first person I got to know.
“My name is Maria.”
“Then who am I?”
And the realization of self.
“Your name is&h.e.l.lip; Hmm, what would be good? Hmm, yes! From now on, your name is&h.e.l.lip;”
-Dorothy.