Year: 1999
Type: article
Abstract: How wide is the arm of a seat in a dark theater?We are both touching the wooden armrest, leaning into it from either side with our bony elbows and our thin naked arms.Our shoulders are so close that the loose sleeves of our tee shirts almost touch.How different it would be if my arm could pass right through.But it is only this solid piece of wood between us that allows us to get so close.The inanimate accepts touch, but can't return it; so simple things get rubbed smooth.Look how this armrest has been battered with attention, polished and popcorn-oiled by all the hands that have sat here with nothing else to hold.Emerging past the armrest, side by side on our blue jean thighs, our flick ering hands.We are blue in movie light, and the shadows of our fingerjoints, our knuckles, our bony wrists, are both spooky and exquisite.We could be statues.Marble in moonlight.Have I ever touched him?Once, as I walked behind him at a crowded party.I put my hand on his shoulder, lightly, just barely resting my fingers on the fabric of his shirt.He was talking and didn't notice.I did this only once, though we were there all night.The room was dim, and always people danc ing and chatting and bumping each other as they passed with drinks.And I, just passing, could easily have reached out again to steady myself with a light hand on his tee shirt, pressing just enough this time to test how bony his shoulder was or feel the muscles along his spine.His index finger curls and straightens.Mine does the same, as if to know what he is feeling is to feel him.Even this tiny movement reminds my finger of my knee, the knee of the finger, returns the texture of the cloth between them.How wide is the arm of a seat in a dark theater?The philosopher Zeno gave this paradox of motion: to reach him, I must cross half the distance between us.Then half the distance remaining; then half of that, and half again, and again, and again: I can only go halfway.Proving, motion is impossible. And yet.That night at the party, for instance.
Source: The Iowa Review
Author: Sharon Wahl
Institution: University of Iowa
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1479504428