Big surprise!
She had expected nobody.
Who was this body?
Big surprise!
She had expected somebody with no feelings below the neck.
Who was this body with nothing above the neck?
She grabbed the body, it was not Noël, she knew that. But quite nice really. She hugged it. Nice, she hummed a little tune through the funnel that was stuck in her neck.
No, it was not a paraplegic, lame from the neck down, able only to move its eyes and lips. It had no eyes, no lips, indeed no head. It hugged her and hummed. She sat it down on the sofa and spoke to it. It probably did not hear what she said, it certainly did not reply.
She took one of its hands and wrote slowly, one letter after another, on its palm with one of her fingers: I AM A SOCIAL WORKER.
She took one of its hands and wrote slowly, one letter after another, on its palm with one of her fingers: I AM JOAN U R SOCWOK
The socwok took a large pad of paper and a marker pen out of her big bag and gave it to Joan. And this is what Joan wrote:
I AM JOAN AND YOU ARE SOCWOK.
I HAVE NO BRAIN.
I HAVE MY GUTS.
I AM GUT-DRIVEN.
I LOVE NOËL.
Very gut-centric thought the socwok.
A young man with thick glasses entered the room and read what Joan had written: Oh! Wonderful! And he hugged Joan.
Joan hummed a high note. Noël took a little box out of his pocket...
...Oh, no! Not Joan smoking a cigarette through a small tube...
...and took out a tuning fork. He tweaked it and held the handle end to Joan's collarbone. Joan hummed the right note.
She hummed a medley of the Marseillaise, Here Comes the Sun, the Karelia Suite and Love Hurts.
Said Noël to the socwok: I think she likes you.