I was walking with a friend who knows more about sculpture than I do. We were walking from a teahouse to a pub and along the way we found a statue.

‘That’s The Burghers of Calais,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know that was here.’

A bird shits on the statue. The shit runs over the metal. They are close to one another. An embrace, or closer. But they are not one, the metal and the shit. The shit dries. It takes the Burghers’ form—if partially—bears their grimaces. They’re not happy, I can tell by the frown lines. How does the shit feel? Are they one now? Did the shit have form before taking the statue’s?

Perhaps the metaphor is inexact. What is a metaphor? Is it a shape? When things take shape you can pick them apart. They chip and they shatter. But iron is stronger than stone, it’s true. The Burghers were made unhappy. Metal was made to frown and now it makes a point. Such was Rodin’s point that we put it by parliament—we scare politicians with it. The shape keeps them honest. Is this a worthwhile contortion?

I’m thinking about becoming a puddle. But I only want to be the water, not the bottom of the puddle or the sides of the puddle. What is a puddle with no water in it? An absence. Of what? What is water without a receptacle? Is it rain? I want to be bigger than rain. Is it better, I wonder, to be stepped on or fallen through? What I’m doing now is thinking and thinking isn’t always useful. If someone is stepping on someone else and you are a puddle suddenly a puddle does not seem a good thing to be.

I want to be malleable, a shapechanger, or abandon shape entirely. Being a statue is hard work. You stand there and get shat on and for what—everything crumbles. Form means an idea can be rained on. Elasticity is too tense. The snapping! I want to be gloopy, really. But I think that would make it easier to step on me. Rather, it would make being stepped on easier.

Not that it’s you who steps on me. If we pass through each other (eventually we will pass through each other), will there be a moment, however brief, when we are one? Permeability. I don’t know if it’s worth falling out of you.

Statues have merit. Of course they do. There is something romantic about standing a certain way for a very long time. Particularly when born down upon at such a rate of knots. Romance is a nice idea and ideas last. Romance given shape rarely lasts because people are clumsy.

I guess I’m scared I’ll break. And I want to be close to you—to the world. I want to spill out, in, and over everything—grace it all and last forever. Good idea. To stand or to pool? Good question. I guess we can’t all be puddles, though it’d be nice if we were. What if it were all fluid? No more time, hello ghosts. No more lines or walls or edges that tear, hello puddle. No here and no there, no us and no other, no then and no now, hello gloop. I think the gloop would be kinder (less pricking) but maybe less fun. There’s no rough around the edges without edges. Us statues must be kinder.

The longer something is something the more likely it is for it to be something else. This is the exponential tension of stasis. The snapping! It is also why statues are impressive. What is a thing if it changes?

Infinite is a big word. I live in the world and I know it’s smaller than I think it is. I know rules are real and if you break them it’s real. I know I am a statue, even if I want to be a puddle. I know, then, that I’m on my way out. Bash into me from time to time like an action figure, if you wouldn’t mind. See to the moss.

The gloop would be kinder.