“I hope I won’t regret this, but I had no choice but to bring my girlfriend to see my enlightened roommate. She had been talking so much about this thing that I have no way of helping her with, that I thought: if there is someone who would have the answer for her, it would be him.“ —the boyfriend.

The enlightened one was in his usual spot on the floor, his body now in a straight line that poured itself to the side. His face squished into the grain while the neck made a sharp angle from the height of his shoulder. All the way down to his fingertips, one arm laid flat under him, and another draped on the wood in front of his waist, twisted, palm side up.

The girl approaches. “Hey, I, uhm…have a question for you. Is now a good time?” 

Silence.

“Give him a moment…,” says the boyfriend.

Nothing.

“Oookay…so this is my girlfriend, Gen. She wants to ask you a question: nails, why?”

Still nothing.

Gen picks up. “My nails are brittle and it frustrates me when they break all the time. Why do we have nails? Why not just have fingers? Why do we need to have little shields on top of each finger?”

Still nothing. The girl looks to her boyfriend for interpretation.

“If he doesn’t answer, it typically means it’s already obvious.”

“You’re gonna have to explain it a little more to me than that.”

She waits for a few more seconds but when the melting guy on the floor still fails to answer, she turns to exchange another worried glance towards her boyfriend.

“Is he ok?”

“He’s uh…not that talkative. I mean, he is, but he just needs some more time. We’ll have to kick start him a bit. But he is fine.”

“How do we do that?” she asks.

The enlightened worm is turned away, with his back facing towards them. The roommate gestures for his girlfriend to take a seat on the floor behind him, and she does, criss-cross apple sauce. The boyfriend joins her. 

“Are you sure he is ok?”

“Him? Yeah, sure. He’s fine.”

“Then why does he do that?” She mimics the contorted position and silence.

The boyfriend shrugs. “Something about ‘you know more than you think you do’, and ‘nobody can give you answers you don’t already have’. Anyway, let’s see…what are nails? Why do we have nails?”

“To scratch?”

“Stratch! That’s a good one—”

NMGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

“CHRIST!” the girl jumps at the muffled wailing that pops beside them. “WHAT WAS THAT!?!”

“Oh…that means he doesn’t agree,” the guy points at his immobile worm friend, then taps his chin. ”Hmm, okay. I suppose that scratch is not the answer because you can also scratch without using your nails. Like, you do when your hands are busy—”

NMGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

The girl eyes the guy’s back and inches herself away. “Why does he keep doing that?”

“It’s still not right.”

“It’s not?”

“Hmm…if scratch is not the answer, but also not not the answer, then it means it is not the whole truth.”

Silence.

“Yesss!” the boyfriend cheers, pulling his hands into fists, and then points a finger at his enlightened friend’s rigid back. “So it depends on the context!”

“You think?”

He shrugs. “Let’s see. Nails…what do we do with nails?”

“Pick at things, scratch…”

“Cut them? I can’t think of anything else..” 

“Oh, that reminds me: I need you to help me cut my dog’s nails.”

Another groan: MHGgh—

“That’s it—”

“Yeah, just that. If you could hold a spoon of peanut butter for the dog while I cut them…”

“No, no—I mean, that’s it! Animals have nails!” the guy points to his heavy breathing worm friend. ”He always does this thing where he makes you look for the answer in other things that are detached from your own body, like plants, animals, or other nature-stuff.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Something about how ‘everything is connected’, and ‘distance allows us to find solutions easier because the body is at ease when spared the judgement of one’s own inner critic’.”

“Wow…that..that actually makes sense. He said that?”

“I know, right?” The guy raises his eyebrows and nods back many times. “So…animals have nails, women have nails…”

“Men have nails.”

“Yeah, but we don’t grow them, paint them, extend them, get shimmy-shiny blings and bazingas on them, so men don’t have nails like women do. Maybe it’s because animals and women are vicious and use them to attack, like your dog does!”

NMGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

“Huh? But dogs attack with their nails.”

NMGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

“Animals…attack with their nails?”

NMGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

“Animals don’t have nails.”

NMGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—

“Nails don’t…exist?”

NMgh—….hm.

“Oh?”

“OH MY GOD!” the girl shoots up. “Would you please stop making him do that? it’s SO annoying!”

“What else am I supposed to do, Gen?”

“Talk!”

“I AM talking to him! That’s the only way he’s been talking back to me for the past three days. That, and the occasional farting that I tried to understand until it got too toxic.”

“You…tried to understand his farts?”

He shrugs. “Hey, I thought he was stuck speaking in morse code.”

“This is stupid! Hey guy, you can talk. Don’t be such a prude!” She bends over the worm-guy and takes a look at his face. “What’s the ball thing in his mouth?”

“The ball thing in his mouth?”

The roommate turns to look as well. “The fuck?” He pulls a blue squeezy ball that is stuffed into his friend’s face.

EAUGAH—the worm-guy gasps once, and then continues flat. “Thanks.”

“The hell, man! You can talk? You’ve been able to use your own mouth this whole time?”

“Mouth? No. But now I can, yes.”

The girl gestures out. “He had a ball in his mouth, of course he couldn’t talk!”

“Couldn’t you take the ball out yourself, man?”

“I just did.”

“No, I just did. I told you before, we are not the same person. Now sit up so we can end this nail debate we’re having here.”

“Can’t move. Arms and legs asleep. Give the consciousness a moment.”

“Wait, that’s why he hasn’t talked in three days!?! Cause he was gagged?” The girl shouts at her boyfriend and he shrugs back to her. “And you didn’t even check on him? I can’t believe you. Poor guy, no wonder he had to muffle out words through his nose.”

“Nose? No. My nose is still stuffed,” says the guy on the floor.

The other roommate pokes him with the tip of one shoe in an attempt to shush him.

The girl is confused. “Why? Wait, what do you mean ‘Nose? No.’? Then how else have you been doing that wail-whirring?”

“The vacuum across the room. I floated my consciousness into it.”

“Did what?” The girl blinks. “Why the vacuum?”

“To suck out the ball.”

“You couldn’t float your consciousness into something more mobile to take the ball out of your mouth?” asks the roommate.

“No. I tried to get your attention, but once I finally managed to move my consciousness through my body and push it out my ass you left to shower, so I went back into the vacuum.”

“Ew—” The girl contorts her face. 

“What do you mean, you went back into the vacuum?”

“I was first inside this vacuum,” he says and twists on his back while lifting a finger at himself—the color in his face is already starting to come up—and afterwards moves to point across the room, “and then I was inside that vacuum.”

“Why did you even have a ball inside your mouth?”

“You have to be the vacuum to shift into the vacuum.” 

“Couldn’t you just…shift back into your own body?”

“Well, no, because there was no body. It was a vacuum.” The worm sits up and dusts himself. “Haunted houses are just places in which someone shifted their consciousness into something else and could not return to the body it left because there was no body left for it to return to.”

“What?”

“Yes, inanimate objects hold consciousness.”

“Wait—no, what…”

“And a camera is a device that exports what the consciousness of the lens sees.” The enlightened one walks towards the door. 

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“To help my grandpa’s consciousness move outside the light bulb.”

“Aren’t you gonna help Gen with her nail thing?”

“I…I don’t know if I can take more of this…”

The enlightened sighs and continues speaking over his shoulders as he walks out the door: “Nails and claws are the defense mechanism of the animal, therefore not used to attack, but in defense if attacked. The reason why some women find more comfort in having long nails is because their subconscious is safe knowing the body has defense tools. Defense tools are only needed if you feel like you are threatened, preyed on, unprotected, or need to fight back at something. The more protected and secure a woman feels subconsciously, the shorter and stronger her nails will be, and the more proficient she’ll be in just being herself. That’s why short nails are classy, and classy is synonymous with rich; and your nails are breaking because your subconscious believes it is too weak to fight something back. I extend my opposite congratulations—”

The door shuts behind him.

Then, silence.

“…”

“Did…did you write that down? I feel like I should have written that down.” 

“Nope…” 

“So…my nails are weak because I am…proficient in being myself?”

The boyfriend thinks. Then, after a while: “Do you think you’re B-vitamin deficient?”

“Yeah, I’m most likely B-vitamin deficient…”