You see, where I come from, most of us spend our whole lives underground. We are born in the soil, we live in the soil, wrapped in blankets made of roots, dirt in our eyes, with no way to escape. And then we shrivel away and die and become soil.
Everyone knows that there are more of us. How many, though? That is difficult to tell considering we live in a place that light does not touch. In fact, I’ve actually never seen another of my kind. Nor have I heard them, or smelled them, or touched them. And I certainly haven’t tasted them. Mostly because I am incapable of having any of those functions.
I have eyes that see nothing, and a skin speckled with dots and dimples for the dirt to get in. But I don’t have any ears, or a nose or a mouth.
So if I can’t see or hear or smell or touch or taste, how do I know that I exist? How do I know that anything exists? How do I know that there are others like me?
Well, if you know the answers, I would appreciate you sharing them with me. Although I’m not sure how we would communicate. Anyway, I’ll leave that for you to work out.
Back to what I was saying before I got side-tracked — usually we shrivel up and return to the soil. But I am aware that there are some of us who do not share this fate. What happens to these special potatoes is a mystery to me. All I know is that they are harvested from the soil and ascend to a higher plane (don’t ask me how I know, because you won’t believe me when I say I was born with this knowledge).
Some days (or nights, because there is no telling the time when you’re underground), I remain wrapped in my root blanket dreaming that I am one of the lucky potatoes who gets to achieve enlightenment.
But what is enlightenment? What if I ascend only to find that the place I have ascended to is another realm of soil? Or any other material that is just as stifling as soil is? What if the new world is worse than being underground? And what if I can never go back?
No, I think it would be best for me to stay here, where I am safe and sound, wrapped in my roots, where nothing can hurt me because I can’t see or hear or smell or touch or taste.
And that is how I always end that train of thought.
Except for today, because today something is different. Today the soil around me has been shifting and I am not quite sure how I know but I can feel this dreaded shift coming closer and closer to me. Before I can do anything to stop it — not that I could have even with all the time in the world — it reaches me.
Something wraps itself around me, entangling itself with my roots. I am forced out of my resting place, pushed up higher and higher, the thin wispy roots around me breaking away. Finally, I break through the surface of the soil, having ascended from my plane of existence.
My eyes are plucked from my skin, the remnants of dirt brushed off my body. And there is nothing I can do. I have been uprooted.
All my dreams and nightmares have come true.
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