... a blue streak of nonbeing, a shaded emptiness like a bubble
We could have planned things more mercifully, perhaps... —Annie Dillard
The Extras found themselves with little to do, and so, inquired about the husks. It was about time too: The husks had been piled visibly in the center ring, waiting to be inquired about. And when the Extras inquired about the husks piled visibly in the center ring, the Extras were taken about. The Extras, it seemed, had much in common with the husks, but only if they looked at them in a particular light. At least one Extra thought so, but that one Extra told the other Extras, and so the Extras sifted through the pile of husks, holding each husk to a particular light to see what it had in common with each Extra. It was not the pile, one Extra thought, holding a husk to a particular light, because we are not in piles, and now, neither are the husks. Don't you see? said a nearby Extra, tilting his husk in the sun. But the first Extra was busy holding a husk with two hands, and so the nearby Extra dropped his husk and picked up another to see, perhaps, if different husks had different things in common with different Extras. One husk had a streak of blue, and the nearby Extra thought, perhaps, that this husk was the husk that he had something in common with. He thought about asking it, but felt silly. The nearby Extra wondered if husks ever feel silly.
The nearby Extra kept wondering if husks feel silly while the Extras compiled a list of what the husks and the Extras have in common. He wondered while they traded husks, then when they fought over husks. The nearby Extra wondered if husks feel silly when the Extras bit at the husks and bit at the Extras and blood and husks, and he wondered if husks feel silly finally when they pushed the husks again into a pile and lit the husks on fire and the Extras dispersed, again with little to do. The nearby Extra wondered all day if husks feel silly, and that night, mashing blue paint into a streak in his hair and looking in the mirror, he thought, no, perhaps not.
