Five digits splayed outward. Index-middle-ring-pinky counted without differentiation, equally persuasive and urgently stretching toward destinations unknown. The intractable question suddenly becomes not what but which.

How many lives array themselves in formation from the palm of one hand, straight-line paths that upon further scrutiny are interrupted by bumps, callouses, intersecting wrinkles and faint outlines of quietly pulsating dark red blood vessels... life flows within each path, each ray pointing in a different direction, all from the same origin. one way leads to a longer travel than the others; another way has a wider latitude along its organic unpaved surface. superficial similarities give way to a more fundamental insolvable incongruity: the impossibility of traveling more than one path at one time.

perhaps, though, a touch of all can give the smallest push toward that one path that creates a fulfilling life. and it may even be a question of perspective: rather than moving outward, inward could be the key to relieving the need for desire-driven journeys into apparent expanse, and ultimately, the very same nothing that consumes it all.