Literal

Jackson was trying to skin the cat. Pan was giving him a tough go of it too. Pan’s very nervous. He has 5 feet of personal space in which he rarely permits invasions. And when you’re trying to give him ear drops or skin him, you better look out. I don’t usually mess with Pan. But Jackson was getting all scratched up and he was holding the knife wrong, so I had to intervene.

BLACK HOCKEY JESUS: Dude. Stop. Jackson. Stop. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
JACKSON (bleeding): Please do tell.
BHJ: You gotta hold him by the scruff of the neck. Tight. Like this.
PAN: Damn!
BHJ: Quiet down you. And then—gimme that knife—you pick a leg and start at the top like this.
PAN: YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER! I’LL NEVER JOIN YOU!

I was showing my son another way to skin the cat when a very ugly woman from the SPCA busted the front door off its hinges.

VERY UGLY WOMAN FROM THE SPCA: Freeze! Drop the cat! Everyone freeze! I said drop the cat! Drop the cat! Drop the cat! I said drop the cat!
PAN: Lemme go.
VUWFTSPCA: What is the meaning of this?!?
BHJ: Nothing. We’re just goofing around. Relax. Good lord you’re shockingly ugly.
VUWFTSPCA: You call skinning a defenseless animal “just goofing around”?
BHJ: O you mean the cat? Hold on one second. We’re not really skinning the cat. It’s a figure of speech we’re riffing on. It’s not really happening. We’re not inside a literal space here.
VUWFTSPCA: Not inside a literal space?
JACKSON: No. This is… text. Words.
PAN: Psst. Lady. Cats don’t really talk.
VUWFTSPCA: O but this is merely showy evasion. Maybe you’re not literally skinning the cat. But you condone cat skinning. Your writing perpetuates cat skinning. You’re admitting your support for the skinning of defenseless cats.
BHJ: Nope. Not really. Like I said. We’re not being literal.
VUWFTSPCA: But these are first person prose pieces on a personal blog about your specific family!
JACKSON: Again. Not really. For instance, my Dad’s not as cool as he’s portrayed. We’re characters. It’s not real. Lighten up Very Ugly Woman From The SPCA.
VUWFTSPCA: Not real?!? But I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m real.
PAN: There is no self that abides.
BHJ: You’re not real and this conversation never really happened. We’re just having fun.
VUWFTSPCA: But how can you have fun in a world where cats really are skinned? Children are starving to death. Right now. Children are starving. Women are being beaten by aggressive males. Races are being oppressed. Life is not fair for homosexuals. People drink merrily in front of anxious recovering alcoholics. Members of differing socioeconomic statuses are having major conflicts based not in logic itself but rather in the clash of opposing logics springing from their respective socioeconomic statuses. There is suffering, sickness, old age, and death. We are at war. How can you write poetry after Auschwitz? And did I mention death? How can you have fun when there's death? What of death?
LUCY: I wanna play. Will you play with me, Daddy?