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.

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