The Split Man

On a split sofa in a split room sat a split man. Nobody knew for sure how he had gotten that way, though in truth not many people bothered worrying themselves about it. He sat, split, weeping then smiling then weeping again, afraid to rise yet shooting up at odd moments, only to fall back to his seat again. Someone once suggested calling him Hair, and while this elicited some laughter at the time, the name has not stuck. People do not know his real name, and thus he is referred to by all sorts of made up names. At times, of course, he is fine with this, but at others he gets quite frustrated. Why, he asks in these frustrated moods, can’t they just settle on a single name? Hair even, I’ll be Hair. Moments later, though, he will be relishing the inconstancy of the various names they attach to him. And that, I suppose, is just the way of such men, of split men.