First Installment of "All About the House," a pronoun experiment.

***Old Version, Incomplete***

I did not come up with the pronouns myself; I used the following chart from here.

	Nominative (subject)	Objective (object)	Possessive determiner	Possessive Pronoun	Reflexive
Traditional pronouns
He	He laughed	I called him	His eyes gleam	That is his	He likeshimself
She	She laughed	I called her	Her eyes gleam	That is hers	She likesherself
It	It laughed	I called it	Its eyes gleam	That is its	It likes itself
They	They laughed	I calledthem	Their eyes gleam	That is theirs	They likethemselves
Invented pronouns
Ne	Ne laughed	I called nem	Nir eyes gleam	That is nirs	Ne likesnemself
Ve	Ve laughed	I called ver	Vis eyes gleam	That is vis	Ve likesverself
Spivak	Ey laughed	I called em	Eir eyes gleam	That is eirs	Ey likes emself
Ze (or zie) and hir	Ze laughed	I called hir	Hir eyes gleam	That is hirs	Ze likeshirself
Ze (or zie) and zir	Ze laughed	I called zir	Zir eyes gleam	That is zirs	Ze likes zirself
Xe	Xe laughed	I called xem	Xyr eyes gleam	That is xyrs	Xe likesxemself

Chapter I. Pussy Land

Little by little, Mobius the cat is slipping off the table. Mobius has the good fortune of trees and a backyard, humans who give nem food and water, and a fleece blanket on the queen size bed of nir Mistress.  Ne has an affinity for food, often sprawling nemself across half the table as someone eats dinner. Somehow ne gets away with this because ne is both adorable and well behaved enough that most people don’t mind sitting with a plate full of food as ne stares and purrs with all the reverence of a devout follower in the presence of nir leader. Presently ne has draped nemself on the rounded edge of the dining room table just in case food happens. Nir tail twitches and nir whiskers flinch, quickened by the bird in the dream ne dreams. As ne twitches and chases more in the dream, nir oversized but elegant Siamese body begins to shift nir way onto the floor.

Suddenly there is a booming baritone voice coming through the living room door a few feet away. This voice belongs to Carrot. Ve has ginger colored hair, and in an ultimately mean and inconsiderate decision on vis day of birth, Carrot’s parents named ver Carrot. Ve sings opera, mostly everywhere, but sometimes in theaters. Vis extroversion is immanent wherever ve finds verself. Right now ve finds verself coming home after a long day of dancing. Sometimes it’s necessary to let oneself go off the deep end singing some disembodied piece of uproariously but beautifully on key nonsense. Carrot is often on key, as vis commotion has come in at the exact moment of Mobius the cat's semi-falling body.  As ne is caught mid-air by the sounds, nir body vaults into action and lands swiftly on nir feet just in time to dart around the corner and down the stairs. Ne doesn’t get far.

On the way down ne runs straight into none other than Ash the cat, who was jotting upstairs to greet zir maistress [german for “master”]. Despite being good friends and living in the same household, they are completely startled by the others’ sudden existence in their space; they both start to tumble down the stairs. Like a flash of lightning in the midst of falling, Ash manages to smite a paw upon Mobius's head, this causes zir to fall backwards more but ze finally catches zerself and turns round to zip up the stairs. All this happens in less than five seconds.

Ash is an older gent of a cat though so ze doesn’t quite make it up the steps before coming nose to nose with Mobius once again who is so not sure where ne is going after the stair debacle. Mobius whips nemself around in a circle and stops suddenly to face Ash, “oh you again,” Ash preemptively lifts a paw, threatening. Mobius stares at Ash with ears slightly back, sits up straight and begins using nir enormous body to intimidate Ash. Licking zir raised paw instead, ze prepares to stand zir ground, licking zir whiskers and teeth with zir tongue repeatedly in an anxious tic. Hours pass in cat time; in people time they do this for the better part of four minutes.

Because one cannot forget the presence of the perpetual motion machine that is Carrot, Ash becomes distracted from defending zir step and decides to cautiously disengage zerself, continuing on zir way upstairs. Ze finds Carrot at the pantry door in the kitchen examining the lid of some imported organic sunflower oil. The oil is contained in a cylinder can with a small plastic lid in the middle of a wide top. There is a rim on the top of these sorts of cans and the oil likes to collect there after a few uses. Carrot is examining this part of the can because there are exactly seven small bodies of drowned moths stuck in the rim. “Moths have a genetic death wish” Carrot utters, then adds melody: “A Genetic DEATH WIISSSHHH.” Carrot walks over to the sink, oil in hand, ve looks one last time at the dark little moth bodies covered in oil, and shuddering, starts to tediously wash each of them out with water and sponge. This would be easy to do, except Carrot isn’t willing to get the bright yellow label wet; not because ve cares about what it says in French, but because it’s just not necessary to ruin things if ve can help it.

Carrot has been running the sponge around the edge, but one last moth remains tucked under the mental lip on the can. Ey is smaller than the rest and ve must scrape em out with vis fingernail. Watching verself do this, ve experienced a superlative combination of sensations; satisfaction in having thoroughly cleaned the can’s rim, and wonder for the varied ways moths perish; specifically the qualia of being a moth drowning in sunflower seed oil. Ve has seen them die in candles, water, rice containers, and many other ways, but not in sunflower seed oil. Did this moth like the taste? Do moths taste? Was there really an experience of an individual here, or was there merely a biological program expiring after succeeding at laying some eggs somewhere in the panty? If moths have no consciousness, then what are they doing, really? “REEALLY,” Carrot mumbles.  

Ash saunters in moments later. Ze took zir sweet time at the top of the stairs sitting and licking zir paws, as if to lick off all those moments of conflict and confusion back on the stairs not thirty seconds before. It’s all over now. Ze is at the top, the top of the stairs. Ze looks one way and then the next, lest ze be attacked by Mars the cat who is still somewhere out there, possibly watching Ash, or possibly sleeping. After confirming Mars is not in the upstairs living room, ze walks over to the aloe plant. They are a large plant, with several thick stems draping over the undersized pot. Ze rubs zirself all over them, getting all those extra gray hairs off zir shoulders and back. Ze uses them for a comb because they have little prickers that nicely tug and scratch zir fur. Some cats have a habit of rushing over to their bowl and eating when their person comes home, even though they had the option the entire time, meals are better when taken in good company. Ash’s thing is to roll and rub zirself all over the carpet and aloe, and yes, sometimes eat a little.   

When Ash finally enters the kitchen ze notices zir Carrot at the sink, vis feet tap around, ve never stands still, especially while ve is singing. Despite the moving feet and jostling legs, which Mobius would view as a danger zone, ze weaves zirself between the feet, managing to get some rubs in.

Ash was wrong about Mars, though. During all the commotion and conflict on the stairs, Mars, an orange tabby, sleeps in the orange chair on the south wall of the living room opposite the Piano. Zir paws stretch out in front of zir long slender striped orange body. Ze loves the afternoon sun, ze loves sprawling out on another orange velvet, as modicums of dust float about in that ray of sunshine, ze looks to be one with them.  Mars had just finished being a tiger hiding in the tall grass attacking grasshoppers and blinking slowly at the sun. Like Mobius before ne fell off the table, Mars is dreaming, but not of birds. Another monster dream, a squirrel with the haunches of a rabbit, large teeth, and vibrating black eyes hauntingly staring back at Mars. Ze had slept through Carrot coming through the door and scraping the moths off the jar in the kitchen. Determined to rid zirself of this monster squirrel ze had to keep staring, ze had to win. Mars is in fact still sleeping, stubborn, staring. The aloe plant is doing the same.

The backyard of the house is covered in orange and red dead leaves. There was no grass to begin with, so some people think it looks better this way, really.

No one has swept the back porch and there are even leaves all about the door stuck in cob webs. All at once the cobwebs are swept away from the doorframe as Carrot opens it abruptly.  “Well fuck this!” ve says loudly to everyone though ve is alone and not really mad. If it is possible to jig down a flight of stairs, this is how Carrot chooses to move vis body, ve likes how it activates vis quads and abs. Carrot is light in weight but well built with a solid core and ample arm and leg strength leading to an overall bouncy disposition.

A bowl of rotting food in one hand and snapping with the other, leaves crunch loudly as ve jots over to the compost bin in the corner of the yard; music follows like a distracted cat. Snapping, half singing, half piffling strains of nonsense, Carrot empties vis vessel of its spoiled contents. An eggshell, a bit of mango, some coffee grinds, pineapple skin, the contents of a jar of moth infested quinoa, slimy rotten spinach leaves, tea bags, and maggot eggs are all going the same place; from their sealed grouped coffin packages to full exposure, then digestion.

Carrot left the door wide open and Ash the cat follows ver, but once outside olfactory takes over. The boy with rotten food is soon abandoned for darting over to the tall grass in the side yard, where thickets of crickets and squirmy furry little packages of organs live. Yet by the time Carrot notices some quinacridonic matter growing on the wooden compost bin, Ash is by vis side smelling the magenta speckled discovery. “Maybe they’re a fungus..” Carrot murmurs, gently prodding it with vis recently cleaned fingernail.

In fact, he is a fungus (hydnellum peckii) and he is sorely disorganized at the moment. This might have something to do with being located on the side of a compost bin instead of growing on a tree somewhere. Or perhaps it is his sudden need to accumulate more carotenoids to protect him from the increased ultraviolet rays at this elevation. Whatever the case, Mr. Hydnellum is getting old. His pink his fading and he never imagined when his spores transmuted from a nearby growth on a cedar tree that things would come to this. For as long as he can remember he just was. That is to say, he doesn’t remember not being exactly as he is right now, but at the same time a change happened though he cannot pinpoint it synchronically. If he could speak in a humanoid langauge, he might tell you he is a direct descendent of the great Prototaxites, the giant mushroom from The Age of Fungus, when the Earth was ruled and covered in Fungi.

Carrot grabs a stick.

The next installment will be posted when I get around to it.

At the risk of being too prolix, I have written the first installment of a short story using alternative pronouns. Trans and gender queer characters are not well represented in literature or fiction and I want change not only this, but the way gender is written in general. Because the written word must endeavor to descibe for its reader what something or someone is like, gender is quite often conflated with sex and cultural mores that are not fluid but rigid and often even less like real persons. For instance a science fiction or fantasy author may write of creatures and planets with great imagination and originality, but in the majority of these novels the characters remain in traditional genders, with even the traditional roles intact from the various cultures of the human race.

People do not currently use the pronouns I use in this story, and therefore it may be hard to read. Indeed, it was also hard to write and hopefully friends can alert me to errors when they spot them. However, as I was writing this first installment, something wonderful happened. The pronouns became easier to write after a while, until I barely noticed I was using them but for the fact these characters are largely based off (combinations) of real people and cats. 

This first installment is largely influenced by the book Animacies by Berkeleyphilosopher Mel Chen, in which they explore the linguistic hierarchy of animacy we give to objects and living beings in our language.  I am not trying to make a statement about the internal consciousness of other beings, but rather exploring what a more equality driven language would look like.