Story for performance #787
webcast from London at 08:22PM, 16 Aug 07

I see you. I see you looking at me. Then, look away, but I’ve seen you now. Come on, you know I did. You flicked your eyes at me. Over me. Why pretend you didn’t. You look interested, are you fascinated? Take a good look, linger while I don’t look back.

What do you see? You think you see it all, can make all of me up in that flick of your eye. Only a flicker of your time to take me all in. What you see tells you all you need to know. All you think you need to know.

You see that wisp of hair at my neck and to you that says I’m straggly. Unkempt. Probably too thin for my body type. Scrawny. Yeah scrawny like an addict. That’s what a glimpse of a wisp of hair tells you. With bad housekeeping habits, or, more likely, no housekeeping habits.

Did you notice my left ear as I lent forward, the little kink in the middle of the outer earlobe? A kind of dent, as if someone has squeezed it hard for a long time and made it a strange shape? What do you make of that? Is it a sign of being a chosen golden one? No I didn’t think so—you see it as an injury, an imperfection self-made. You think, by the look of me, I got it caught in the door of a car when it was slammed in fury as I was pulled back into it, flailing and flinging my head in a crazed delirium. A glimpse at my ear tells you that I’m out of control

And the piercing. Did you notice that? Just a little flash of it now and then. It’s an odd one isn’t it? Are you wondering how it got there, what the story is? Every tattoo and piercing has a myth attached, a story of its arrival. The decisions taken—why this day and not another? Why this pattern not another? Yet the story you make up is that is was a rash gesture made on my part in yet another chaotic moment. Not of a considered, carefully thought out interruption to the fabric of the body, a deliberate intervention signifying a complex, cultural intelligence. Can you tell if I’ve got a tattoo—have you given me one? Bet you have, it’s all part of making me up. You blush with the knowledge of that tattoo, its position. That, and the piercing. A glimpse of the piercing tells you of my empty soul.

You have fixed me with these small body clues, framed me, you hold me tight. Do you want to touch me—no you are fascinated and repulsed. You want to lick the piercing and you are appalled. You don’t really want to be near me at all. I am wispy and bent and empty.

That one look at me and you know all this about me. And now you plan to fix me, even more. To change the things you know that you know about me, for the best. Modify the hair, the soul, the disfigurement.

You don’t see the depth of me, under the skin of me. My cells escape your glance. You think it would work better if I was different, met your standards. You look at me like you think it’s just a matter of a nudge in the right direction. You have some assured knowledge about what will make me change my behaviour, take on your values. You want me to want what you want in this small and complex life. Go on then, make me an offer, throw me a carrot, and another. See if you can convince me that all is paradise on your side.

You want me to be someone like you, someone you recognise easily, comfortably. To greet me in a neighbourly way passing in the street. You’ve looked at me in bits for so long, on different days, in the same place. You have held me there in your mind. I don’t exist in any other condition for you. I know that my fixedness makes you flexible, and free. And assured. You need me to be exactly what you see in a glimpse to stay certain of yourself. I am essential to your makeup.

Keep an eye on me. For as long as you can. It really won’t be for much longer. Did I tell you I am leaving you? Not just yet. But I will. When I decide, not from your urgings but from my own longing to be free of your watching.

What will you do then? Who will you be?

Adapted for performance by Barbara Campbell from a story by Helen Idle.