Canto VII
New Co-Op Cashier False Doppelganger Arguments
1227:1739 .706
Cloud just at that moment
had begun to recapitulate,
this time to the two of them—
Aerith and Tifa—
how it wasn’t actually the case
that he’d seen the being,
no, there wasn’t in fact
an actual physical being
in that sense of the phrase—
it wasn’t like the men in the black
cloaks they’d be following in Rebirth
(were either of them
familiar with that plotline yet?).
He’d just began to explain this
to the both of them,
and Cloud didn’t feel any different
about it necessarily—
the fact that he was telling
the both of them—Tifa was behind the bar
and Aerith just happened to be there.
It was fine. Were they familiar
with Rebirth yet? Probably not, right?
But no, in this case Cloud had been
fucking, you know, just sitting
on this carpet in Wutai at the time—
he sat on the carpet cross-legged,
and then he suddenly intuited
a "purely divine being" emanating
in the triangle head encapsulated
in the perfectly square design
that repeated endlessly
throughout the entire carpet.
This triangle head was what
Cloud could only describe
as a "laughing Allah",
that’s how it struck him—
there wasn’t really a question about it
in Cloud’s mind, and it was actually beautiful.
Yes, a "laughing Allah"
was the only way he could describe the divine being,
which certainly "communicated with him"
as he sat cross-legged in Wutai
in a somewhat mystical manner,
albeit not quite verbally,
but the being certainly
communicated in a way
that caused Cloud to smile.
Cloud—smile?! The two women
found that totally hilarious!
Tifa nearly fucked up
the beer she was pouring
she was so surprised to hear
Cloud of all people
talking about himself "smiling",
but neither Tifa nor Aerith
found this anecdote of Cloud’s
to be disingenuous in any way—
in fact they both fully supported
Cloud’s confessions and more often
than not even found them
legitimately intriguing
(but there were, of course,
some exceptions!),
albeit they generally
found the anecdotes intriguing
in a one-on-one setting,
as opposed to this FFM arrangement.
But that was clearly fine!
It just so happened Aerith
was around and she popped in the bar.
No big deal at all!
Yet, while contemplating whether or not
another Moscow Mule
was advisable or not,
Cloud expressed quite vigorously
that he wanted to relay
a subsequent anecdote
that he viewed apropos
of the carpet encounter,
if that was okay? Of course!
Well, specifically
it was that when
he popped into his local co-op
grocery store that morning,
for just a few minor items,
a couple hand fruits really,
and the new cashier asked him—
right as he shifted his headphones
up off of his ears
to start the formalized sales transaction—
if his "brother or something"
went there sometimes?—
to the grocery store?
Did Cloud "have a brother" by any chance?
Because she, the new cashier,
felt like she’d seen him before?
Well,
Cloud said to the cashier,
thinking about it for a second,
he found it quite possible
that this alleged
doppelganger was actually
fucking just him!—Cloud himself!—
that the cashier was
in that particular instance
confusing Cloud "for his actual self",
that this cashier
"only believed she’d seen"
someone who looked "just like Cloud" before
because she’d, in fact,
seen Cloud before.
He walked away just momentarily,
he told Tifa and Aerith,
just to toss his basket back
into the stack of baskets
behind the automatic
doors. Yeah, he’d take one more
Mule, please Tifa?
The new cashier was chuckling
when Cloud arrived back
at the checkout counter
ready to pay for his shit—
she was in the process of entering
the item number for his red quinoa,
chuckling alone—
"it could’ve been you" she repeated,
chuckling, but then,
Cloud relayed
to Tifa and Aerith,
she actually came around to Cloud’s particular hypothesis.
The new cashier,
after thinking about it,
came to agree with Cloud,
that she actually probably had seen him
in the grocery store before,
and that she’d just now erroneously
figured he had a brother,
when in fact this hypothetical brother
was "actually just Cloud himself".
Tifa considered,
after she’d ingested the full anecdote
and served Cloud
his refreshed Moscow Mule,
that it was somewhat likely
that the cashier wanted to
quote-unquote suck his cock,
and Cloud didn’t necessarily
disagree with the notion!—
he certainly considered it
possible, that this cashier
may have been amenable
to something like that,
but that wasn’t quite the point!
There was a type of wisdom
latent in the exchange,
wasn’t there?—
regardless of whether or not
the cashier wanted to
"perform fellatio" on Cloud?
Aerith, by contrast,
took a more philosophical angle
to her analysis
of the encounter,
because she agreed with Cloud
that the cashier exhibited
a certain spiritual insight,
even if it was inadvertent.
Aerith, for her part,
didn’t put much of any stock
into the cashier’s intentions,
whether or not they were sordid,
benign, or simply indifferent.
Upon acknowledging this
Tifa noted that she recognized
Aerith’s point of view as valid,
that it was probably
the "right way to take it in",
even if she, Tifa,
wasn’t personally at the point
of participating in quite that level
of objectivity
(if they could, in fact, call it that).
Cloud noted that,
at the end of the day,
he couldn’t help it if
a "certain person felt an urge"
to suck his cock—that whether or not
someone wanted to suck anyone’s cock
is something ultimately unknowable,
that he couldn’t simply
toss potential spiritual encounters
to the wayside purely because
of a purported sordid subtext
or intention. Both women
agreed with this,
yet perhaps Aerith
just a tad more than Tifa?—
not to say Tifa was somehow
beside herself with jealousy
in any material way—no,
this distinction between Tifa and Aerith
was probably rooted more so
in Aerith’s basically absurd ability
to remain philosophically
undeterred about other women
while steeped in an obvious love triangle.
Did she even like Cloud, really?
Because it was really quite evident
that Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith
were "collectively entwined
in a sort of love triangle",
but Aerith, for her part,
maintained quite the unique ability
to remain essentially
philosophical about it all—
she didn’t seem to allow feelings of jealousy
to overcome her in the least
when Cloud relayed anecdotes
about cashiers that,
if the three were being honest,
clearly wanted to whip
the guy’s cock out and suck on it
for an extended interval of time.
Did she even really like Cloud?
His individual feelings on the situation
were a little ambiguous,
even when he was all alone—
Cloud was of course incapable
of assessing his own feelings
for somewhat obvious reasons.
