You and I (and the Jumper of Love)

Once, a long time ago, there was the You and I. The You and I were strange creatures, linked, meshed, two bodies intertwined and bound together. The You and I kept warm in the Jumper of Love, which wrapped around them and kept them warm. Their souls burrowed in under the Jumper of Love, and all four, the four-in-one, lived a warm and cosy life.

The You and I drifted along life in this way for a mouse of time, but slowly another element crept into their Jumper of Love. Restlessness burrowed in between the souls, and left an uncomfortable lump. The You and I stopped being content in their mouse of time and began to wriggle for a new life.

“What we shall do,” said the You and I to themselves, “is step our feet on to that circular fan over there. It will spin and fling us far and wide, and we shall fly away from each other to live a new and interesting life.”

The You and I all did as they proposed, stepping their feet onto the circular fan, gripping tight with their hands and holding on as it spun and spun. The spinning pulled away the Jumper of Love, freeing the souls and ridding them of the restlessness which had itched between them. It spun and spun and flung the You and I away from each other, so that they became You, and Me, and Them, and Us, and Everybody Else. Soon, there were no You and I to be seen.

You, and Me, and Them, and Us, and Everybody Else landed across the lands, their bare feet feeling pinkish on the hard ground and their heads still spinning from the flinging. No-one knew what had happened to the Jumper of Love, and no-one knew who owned it now between You, and Me, and Them, and Us, and Everybody Else. It was very complicated.

You, and Me, and Them, and Us, and Everybody Else wandered around for a time, standing upright and grinning at nothing in particular, but it got to be a lonely sort of life. They could create abstract art but there was no-one to itch against any more, and they missed the cosy feeling they had shared, a mouse of time ago.

Then one day, one of You, and Me, and Them, and Us, and Everybody Else found a string from the Jumper of Love. It had unraveled completely, but they thought they remembered how it had been, so they asked another one of You and Me and Them and Us and Everybody Else along and between them they wound and twisted and stretched and pulled and got themselves into a new Jumper of Love… or something like it. And their souls came along and burrowed in and they were content, after a fashion.

And so it has been since then. Sometimes, a couple of the You and Me and Them and Us and Everybody Else will pick up a thread of the Jumper of Love and, doing their best to remember the pattern, try to knit themselves a new one. Sometimes the Jumper doesn’t fit, sometimes it unravels again, and some come out in weird patterns and shapes.