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125 Fifteen Easy Minutes Man on Extremely Small Island Jason Koo —after a Mordillo cartoon I think I must be sitting on the kneecap of a gigantic woman: stretched out on the sea floor, one long leg folded in, triangulating heavenward, her knee just breaches the surface enough to make my seat. How she came to be here, how I happened to wash up on her kneecap shore, why she never puts her leg down— these are questions I do not pursue. Instead, I try to picture the woman’s face: eyes lidded, mouth upturned in sleepy pleasure, she can just bear the tickling my body gives her; naturally, I’m afraid that if I move too much a giant hand will come whalebursting out of the water to thwop me like a golf ball into the sea. So, still as possible. Once, I did an experiment: I got down on my belly—gingerly— seal-wagged my upper body down the eastern slope of the knee, and sent my hands snorkeling—a distinct shudder. Was that her thigh? That shudder nearly broke my ribs, so I’ve never tried the opposite slope for shin. Sometimes, as is my way, I begin to feel ungrateful: why couldn’t it have been a breast instead of a knee? I could lie down, feel cared for, sleep. I could relax... The irony, of course, is that from the sky the knee probably looks like a breast, with me as nipple, so, when you notify the Coast Guard about my situation, 126 A Face to Meet the Faces be sure to warn them of the resemblance. Not that I expect anyone to find me. By the time you get this message—if you get it—I’ll have been swallowed up by a storm; the fact that I haven’t been already I would call a “miracle,” but when you throw yourself off a ship, lose consciousness, and come to on a kneecap, can anything else go by that name? Miracle. And all those years I asked for a smaller nose. I said to God, Just give me a chance. This isn’t a nose— it’s a melon. Just make it a little smaller, something a woman can convince herself to live with if I am a good enough man... When I came to that first strange morning I thought I’d washed up on a giant nose. I said to God, Very funny, very very funny. Hilarious. I’m dying here. You kill me. Then I put my nose into my hands and wept. But now I think kneecap—I won’t give God that satisfaction. And my sea-goddess, she has no nose. Just a space where mine can fit. I’m running out of shirt. You might be wondering where I got this bottle—someone must have thrown it off the ship. There was another message inside. I’m alone, it said. Find me, find me. I threw it in the water. Strange— I used to hate sitting in my apartment, night after night, hearing murmurings in the apartments around me; now I stare at the endless, sunshot blue and try to imagine walls. ...

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