It was on a Sunday that Valerie found herself having a good think about things like this and that. Which is a typical way for Valerie to begin her week, as she finds it pleasurable to get lost in contemplation on occasion. She pondered from one thought to another, in a willy-nilly sort of manner, aimlessly ruminating on nothing in particular. She was thinking for thinking’s sake. Frivolously considering. And as she indulged in her reverie, Valerie’s ordinary sense of perceived things, such as a lamp or a billiard ball, or—more accurately—an actual lamp or an actual billiard ball, became of no concern. Her extrospection was gently displaced by her day dreaming.
The popular expressions “to think with one’s heart” and “to think with one’s genitalia” are often used to indicate when a thought process is dictated by something other than our rational faculties. This is because the head—with its well-reasoned inhabitant, the brain—is deemed the rational epicenter of the body. And so a thought originating from any point other than the head is inherently subject to a degree of irrationality. But this lack of rationality is mitigated by the addition of other materials, such as—in the case of the heart and of the genitalia—emotion and libido, respectively.
Now, contrary to popular belief, ideation is liable to happen within any part of the body. It’s not just the brain, heart, and genitalia that do the thinking. one might find themself thinking with their tummy, their elbow, and the backside of their knee from time to time. Each area with its own degree of irrationality. And each area with its own other stuff.
And this other stuff is important. It’s the primal stuff. The soft core of our existence. It’s the hidden energies that give definition to our form. It’s our essence.
Valerie had uncovered some enjoyable ideas during this particular thinking session. Some in her shoulder, a few from her spine. She had a lot of thinking going on in her heart (which isn’t unusual, she’s a romantic). She had thoughts in her fingertips, spleen, and philtrum. A useless notion or two in her appendix. And a few randy musings in her vagina. But the most remarkable thoughts—the ones with the purest beauty, clarity, and evocation—took place in her feet.
These foot thoughts were quite astonishing, and anyone would find great pleasure in knowing them, but they can’t be delineated here. They lack any sort of reason. The feet are about as far as one can get from the brain and thus about the furthest one can get from rationality, so they are difficult to put into words. They elude language. But if one were to try to relate them, it might be something like this:
raaah bon tun, raaah bon tun, raaah bon tun, keeeee ki keeeee ki, raaah bon ton, keeeee ya. bituh vruum… vruuum. bituh vruum… vrumlch. vruuum… vrumlch. raaah bon tun, raaah bon tun, raaah bon tun, tungka ti tungka… raaah bon tun tungka… slrhompt... jrump… ririririri, slrhompt… jrump… ririririri… thrungobeenee tat. thrungobeenee tat. raaah bon tun, raaah bon tun raaah… raaah… raaah… rah.
Or something along those lines, but it doesn’t do justice. The substance is drained in the transcription. Still, any endeavor that brings one nearer—no matter how slight—to grasping Valerie’s foot thoughts is worthwhile because they really were the loveliest of thoughts. And so in the interest of understanding the parameters in which these thoughts occurred, it’s advantageous to list some of the structural bracings of foot-think:
1. A foot thought has a fetishistic quality. It is both arousing and repulsive, with different degrees of each depending on the person, but always in tandem.
2. A foot thought is the purest form of bizarre, opposing all logic yet ever-alluring. It speaks to our most primary way of being. In this way, it is a great weakness, as no reason can console it.
3. Foot-thinking is fleeting. It’s always in motion. Usually in one direction, but on occasion in a pacing manner, and always with a slight wobble; it has no ability of—or use for—precision.
4. Its moment of fullest development is the same moment as its conception. Any attempt to later reminisce on a foot thought results in nothing more than a voided silhouette (and a good deal of frustration).
That night, having emerged from her introspection, Valerie brushed her teeth, put on her pajamas, and climbed into bed. But she found herself too bothered to sleep. The remnants of her foot thoughts, those empty silhouettes, haunted her. She’d love to have known with what exactly she had been so taken by earlier that day, as she could feel she had been privileged to moments of perfect, lurid, beautiful cohesion, but what small fragments she had been able to retain seemed to indicate nothing particularly phenomenal.
Valerie’s husband, attuned to the subtleties of her mood, picked up on her frustration and asked, “Why is it that you’re so bothered, Honey?”
She responded, choosing carefully each word, “the tiger fish on the governess’ fat balcony killed the two who cried for tangerine sweets—or vlumtish rolls—and the three who were—not exactly beset with difficulties—but who hadn’t defecated for 3 weeks because of the sprunkler sawhogs and the governess’ order that came about indisture to the hunglo times at the bottom of Frank’s place.
“Well, it wasn’t because of that, but that had happened, and at least the one with juff-thuffs for pits couldn’t stop thinking about the yellow-ness of it all. And there’s a giraffe, or the giraffe is wenko. Like, it’s all in the giraffe, and it’s all of the giraffe. It’s made from it. But the giraffe doesn’t have its hooves anymore. It’s a hytoop-tipuy-hubo giraffe. And it’s nighttime, but in a contradictory kind of way. Because it’s still inside the hytoop-tipuy-hubo giraffe, which doesn’t really have a nighttime to it.
“But it is nighttime. You see, the swengthopisis are stretched out between the town’s windows. And because it is so late, and because he thought he could get away with it, the wrong doctor turned a faucet on, but it isn’t his faucet. He had no right to do that. But he keeps yelling that he has the authority because he can feel it in his bone marrow when the faucet is turned off, and it makes him uncomfortable. He has an intrinsic fretupli bonsh to the faucet. And, on the other side of the building, still as yellow as before, the snow worms have the lights on inside of them.”
Her husband sat for a moment, trying to comprehend Valerie’s mess of words, a few of which he was sure she had made up. But he did give it an honest and thorough attempt because he’s a patient man, and he does love her, and if anyone would be able to parse out what she meant, it would be him. But, having tried and failed to make any sense of it, he eventually replied, simply, “what?”
Mistaking this for an expression of understanding, Valerie touched her foot to his. Caught off guard, he squirmed, “oh!” Then he flexed his hips, lowered his voice, and said, “oh.” He got an erection. Valerie had been mistaken; he did not understand. She felt a soft throb in her foot and an emptiness in her heart.