Luco & the Spinny Cat Toy Thingy

The prison guard got me this toy, perhaps in a vain attempt to bring me a small amount of joy, I do not know what prompts her to act. This toy used to have a cardboard scratching insert, but she took it away, and I do not know why. Perhaps she took it out of spite. Perhaps to exert her authority. I cannot say. Life is complicated.

Inside the track of this toy, there lives a small, plastic ball. It is fascinating. I watch it spin around and around and around and around, but never can I clasp it in my mouth. Never can I taste its cool plastic exterior which would, I am sure, crinkle deliciously between my teeth.

We are in motion together - we move through time as though through water - indistinct blurs smeared across an electronic horizon - nothing more than fragments of dust, of moments - nothing more than a momentary desire which burns and burns and will not be satiated. 

I am compelled to set the ball spinning even though I will never catch it. Even though it slices through my lungs and I cannot breath each time I fail to hold it in my mouth. Even though it must delight the prison guard to observe my suffering. Even though I become a slave to an inanimate construct which nevertheless seems constantly to be laughing in my face as I send it around yet one more time, and one more time, and then once more again. Is it possible this wild abandon is a kind of joy?

If it is, then to experience joy is to suffer greatly.