You Really Move Me...

The last time I was putting together a piece of flat pack furniture I came across these small boards which were sandwiched between the actual functional pieces in order to keep them from rubbing up against each other during shipping. These little boards appeared to be scraps from production of the furniture as they were made of the same fine hardwood. They would be seemingly unremarkable, except that across each of these boards was written the single word...

REMOVE

This of course was written in the imperative. It is a command to anyone that reads it telling that person that this board needs to be removed from its current situation.

This is all well and good when its purpose within the packaged article is served. However, from the day that fateful instruction was scrawled across the face of that board until the end of time that poor object will never find its place.

Everywhere it finds itself it will simply sit there, telling anyone that comes across it that it must be removed.

One could attempt to end this once and for all by completely destroying the board, but to do so; one must put it in a place where this can happen. The result of this simple fact should be obvious.

If one throws it in a fire, it will instantly command that it be removed. If one throws it in the trash it will continue to demand its own removal.There doesn’t seem to be a way out of this quandary.

The moment those faceless workers wrote the word REMOVE on that board they robbed it of having any place in this, or any, universe. Consequently, they robbed it of having any purpose (other than the trivial purpose of being removed) and they robbed it of any real existence. It is no longer a real thing; it is simply a reference to its own need of removal.

I have kept one of these boards, and I shall spend my life constantly removing it from one place to another. I will remove it in every way I can and from every place I can, for it is my quest now, not only to fulfill the purpose of that board, empty as it may be, but to remind myself of my own tenuous place in this world.

It would seem we ourselves are but one ill-chosen tattoo from this very limbo; we are but one single word away from losing all meaningful existence or purpose.