Gunnhild Øyehaug

“But then the hand disappeared, back to where it came from, I suppose. Could no one expect that an intervention such as this, from nowhere, voiceless and terrifying, would change nothing about the way one lived? That one could still totally trust one’s surroundings and not watch one’s tail at all times and tuck it under oneself when one sleeps? No. But, and I say this with absolute conviction: if someone pulls your tail because they clearly think you are a thread, know that the connection you offer in standing there, albeit unwilling and only for a few seconds, was perhaps enough for whoever needed a thread to pull--that those hands understood that they weren’t just fumbling in a big empty room without ever finding something to hold. They found you, you were there, and they could sigh with relief: ah yes, not alone after all.”
― Gunnhild Øyehaug, Evil Flowers: Stories