Star-Sprinkled Body

I close the fridge, shoving the huge pile of leftover pasta into the microwave and sit down with a glass of water. When you have to constantly put food on other peoples’ table to make money, you forget to eat yourself. My legs hurt from 9 hours of walking, standing and occasionally sprinting and the hour of cycling, my feet throb. The microwave beeps and five minutes later the dishwasher turns on. Upstairs, I undress to get in the shower, my reflection in the toothpaste spotted bathroom mirror follows my lead. I look at my outershell and light a cigarette.

Right now, I am five different shades of white: bleached paperwhite, white shirt after a few washes, eggshell, breadstick and well-done home made vanilla crumble cookie. The tan lines separating white from white tell the different phases of my summer behavior, how often I wear a shirt, bra, pants or slippers.

My cheeks are as cold as the bums on the marble statues in the Vatican. What classical beauty a rainy night can bring out.

My legs are long

and white like rice noodles before you boil them for 8 minutes and rinse them with cold water. My legs are hairy. It started as an experiment a few months ago, as a protest against the male gaze, I challenged myself to let my hair live up to its fullest potential. I’ve gotten attached to my furry jungle, so I kept it.

My skin never listens to me. It’s more sensitive to stress than I am. My face and body react in different ways but generally, there are 3 scenarios:

11)    I’m stressed and my face pimples and my body psoriases, which stresses me out and contributing to the worsening of the skin situation the outbreak.

22)    I’m stressed and get worried that I’ll be breaking out and those extra worries make me break out.

33)    I’m chill, but I break out, making me realize how stressed I actually am, about anything, our purpose, our meaning, how I decide to live my life, whether I’ll be homeless and unemployed in a month and whether people actually like me.

I’m covered in birthmarks. Spotted like the milky way. If you trace the ones on my left forearm, you’ll be able to reveal sign from the heavens: a retarded seal. Sorry. Mentally challenged. Since light therapy, I’ve gotten more, so maybe the seal has been consealed, lost in the white noise of the newcomers. Some of the new ones are evil and need to be cut out. How many scars make a pirate? And where should I send my resume to apply?

            If you follow the downwards arrow-shaped shadows of my ribs, you will arrive at my tummy. It has a little silver pendant in it. Papa Francesco will be looking straight at you. However, my belly used to be of a much more blasphemous faith. Barbarically observed, measured, pinched and squeezed. It could not be inverted enough. Hipbones had to stick out 1,5 cm over whatever bodypart is in between them. If not, the ritual would begin, and fasting would be my only pillar of worship. Luckily, these days I get more satisfaction out of fries and the pope.

I’ve always liked my hands. They are skeletal, see-through tools with conveniently chewed and chipped fingertips. The nails are always just that length where I burn the new skin, that is forming under the nail I so violently ripped off, when I do the dishes. On my right hand, there is an inexplicable black spot, which I always tell people is my first tattoo. I supposedly got it when someone stabbed me with a pen in primary school. In actuality, my mom told me a suspiciously similar story when I was a kid. So I must have adapted and implanted the story into my memory. Interesting how our mind tricks us, because the story of my battle scar is as defining as any other memory to me.

My face has been through a lot of transformation, which usually revolved around either minimizing or maximizing my facial expression. Either extravagantly applied full face or just eyebrows (blond people miss out on all that fun). My forehead is wrinkly, because my mom always had wrinkles, which made her like a wise turtle or owl to me. She would prefer owl. I felt like she’d fold her face and in its folds a solution to any problem would slowly develop, as in the end, after frowning, things usually got solved somehow.

I sat in front of the mirror for hours to train my forehead muscles, flexing all day. Before I knew it, I also had wisdom folds, but unfortunately, the wisdom did not come along with them. My problem-solving skills even went slightly backwards, other kids called me gorilla, as my face had become very flexible and extremely expressive.

My hair is red and dready. A while back, I decided that shampoo was a capitalist lie. The first few days, it was very difficult to live with the truth, as my hair looked like it had been used to clean out a deep frying pan. Then I just got used to it, and my volume was off the charts. Unfortunately, I became rather quite self-conscious when noticing the difference between its fabulous appearance in my eyes and its allegedly “moppy” appearance to others. Luckily, shampoo turns out to be an easier capitalist lie to accept than the systemic oppression of the working class.

I stand in front of the mirror and smile. Ears like pin cushions, obnoxious hair, chewed fingernails, irregularly tanned and slightly blemished. Stripped down to the cigarette.  

Portraits by Maud Fernhout

Not Wired For Society

The rain drizzles quietly over the cars greeting each other at the cross-road. The lamppost is flickering, unsure which moments of the dark night to light up. The specks of water become golden spears when illuminated in a twinkle.
               Dave has leaned his bike against the light pole and watches traffic go by. His blond curls peeking out of his blue hoody catch wet pearls, his clenched hands in his pockets. He does not know how long he has been standing there. Maybe 10 minutes. He does not know exactly why he is standing there, but he feels that he should not go home yet.
               At home, only a mountain lion awaits him. The contrast between his smooth fur and his death claws have scared him out of the house. Dave had never felt comfortable with the novel. How does one deal with a lion? When humans were closer to primates than to Dave, there was a well-defined course of action to be taken if a mountain lion found its way onto human territory. The group of not-exactly-Daves would be gathered, supplied with rather ineffective weapons, have communicated a strategy in grunts and wheezes and eliminated the threat.
               Dave, on the other hand, had to deal with animal protection and the division of the government handling illegal immigration, contraband and smuggling.  Dave’s backyard was tiled and too narrow to secretly bury a lion. Burying an illegal immigrant was also novel to Dave and something he desperately wanted to avoid. He had not even wanted a lion, but one day it just stood on his porch and let itself in once the door was answered.
               Moths are periodically flocking around the lamp post, fluttering off disappointedly every time its light dims. The rain is slowly but intrusively seeping through the holes in Dave’s right shoe. A red Honda smiles at a black Toyota. The Honda’s headlights give it the appearance of a girly cat, the Toyota looks more like one of those fast bugs Dave can never catch but always sees lurking in the dark corners of his pantry.
               There is nothing wrong with Dave. He has a part-time job at a copy shop, goes for runs in the park, likes foreign movies and cooks the same four meals in a rotating order. It makes it easier to remember his grocery list. It is not appreciated or even considered worrisome to not have connections, so Dave has a handful of friends he sees once a month. He does not have a girlfriend and is unsure if he actually wants one. None of his friends are girls, so to think that first he has to find a girl to befriend and then make her his private girl-friend does not seem within his capacities.
               The day after Dave went to the therapist for the first time, the mountain lion became his roommate. The therapist is nice but asks difficult questions:

                              “Do you have problems relating to others?”

                              “Have you been feeling different this week?”

                              “How do you deal with stress?”

               She has long brown hair that cascades over her shoulders. A few locks have tangled themselves around the wooden buttons of her wrinkled blouse. She is good at watching Dave kindly and waiting for him to formulate an answer.

                             “What makes you happy?”

               One moth has been caught by surprise when a fat drop engulfs and smashes it into Dave’s left sleeve. He sees how the brown powder creating the patterns on its wings bleeds into his jacket. It probably cannot take off and fly anymore and has to spend the rest of his short existence on Dave’s arm. 

               D:           “What makes other people happy?”

               T:           “That shouldn’t matter in what brings you happiness.”

               D:           “More as an example.”

Her nose wrinkles when she pushes her glasses into their preferred position. Her eyes dart from the aloe vera plant in the left corner to the supposedly calming painting of a sunny meadow on the north wall of the consultation room. 

T:           “For example, most people gain happiness from pursuing a goal or an interest, that can be a promotion, a study or course, a family, a pet or journey.”

D:           “I already have a pet.”

She sighs, closes her notebook and chucks it aside to then arrange it in line with the corner of the table.

T:           “I’ve told you this before: the mountain lion is not a pet. But that does not mean you shouldn’t take care of it.”

D:           “Every time I approach it, it does something unpredictable, I don’t like it. Every time I chase him off the porch, he is back in the living room by the time I come in again. How can I be thinking of my happiness if the source of my unhappiness is on my sofa, eating my dinner every night?”

The therapist knows that she put that mountain lion on Dave’s porch. She has been telling him that since their second session, but he is a stubborn patient. There is nothing wrong with Dave. He has a job, enough friends to call him sociable and does not mind bad weather.

He was not a bad psychiatric case, did not need medication, maybe did not even need therapy. Because his life was alright. She took him on as a patient because he seemed empty, unaware of his routine, emotions and fears.

His first session he came in with his eyes widened, his blond curls a fuzzy halo. He sat down on the leather sofa that seemed to have belonged to Sigmund himself. He told her that he had got a letter that was not addressed to him, but opened it anyway. It said:

Dear Marras,

I’ve been thinking about you a great deal. It must be lonely without knowing my whereabouts. I really could be anywhere. I assure you that I’m fine. Me and the boys always find something to keep us busy, happy and maybe also useful. Soon I’ll tell you more about this mission, but its details are still confidential. Sorry honey.

I think we should go on that trip together we always talked about, once I’m back and settled in again. This fucking desert is so hot, I’d like to go someplace cold. Maybe Norway. You always wanted to go to Europe, right?

I have also been working on a list of novels and poems we should read to each other and movies we should watch in our bed. I miss our orange curtains that make our room look like a circus tent every morning, when the sun tries to beam through them. Maybe Harriette can join us, if you make sure I got enough tissues to battle my allergies. Speaking of, I surely hope you’re feeding Harriette less these days, remember that the vet said clearly that she should lose weight!

I have to admit I even miss that furry scoundrel. Marras, you’re the light that wakes me up at 5am and guides me through the day, my fig princess. I can’t wait to hug you again. This time, I will hold you forever.

Yours, Keith

T:           “Why do you think you opened the letter?”

D:           “It was on my doormat. It felt like it was mine.”

T:           “Then what struck you when you read it?”

D:           “I can’t seem to connect to Keith’s feelings for Marras. The letter seems to be filled with pockets of happiness and love. I made me realize that I have never experienced anything like it.” 

T:           “Love? Affection? Intimacy? Happiness? Can you explain what you mean?”

D:           “None of it. But I’ve also never felt like I needed it. I am alright. Now, after reading this letter, I wonder whether alright is enough for me.”

Dave flicks the moth of his sleeve and grabs his bike. He does not cycle, but walks along the boulevard, reading the license plates, wondering how many spy agencies communicated through these combinations of letters and numbers. He speculated what an Arabic license plate would look like and whether you would have to read it from the left. Then how would someone unable to read the Arabic alphabet report an Arabic-license-plated car?

D:           “I feel off. Confused. Not necessarily boring, but empty. I have never registered specific moments of happiness, so why do I constantly notice my unhappiness since I read the letter?”

T:           “Because you are socially comparing yourself to Keith. He has a partner, shared memories, future plans and apparently a mission. Maybe you feel like you don’t have that. There is nothing wrong with you. You just need to adjust to the small disappointments in life. Keith is just different from you, not better or worse. But you should try to work on yourself and find things to trigger happiness. In the long run, the small issues will slowly expand from the back of your mind until they are so big that you can no longer hide from them and then there is something wrong with you. Stress builds up and you have to tend to yourself. Don’t let this problem become a mountain lion.”

D:           “What does that mean?”

T:           “Dave, you are a modern human with modern problems. When your ancestors had the same amount of stress as you have about your unhappiness, it was usually caused by an identifiable threat. Maybe a mammoth or mountain lion. Cortisol, adrenaline and other hormones, causing an alert, stressed state, would make them more efficient at killing the beast, after which their bodies would return to its baseline. Even though our society, lifestyle, technologies and stressors have changed, our biological circuit hasn’t. If you worry too much about your unhappiness, but don’t take steps to live a life you deem worthy, you don’t go back to that baseline. The threat becomes unidentifiable.”

D:           “So my unhappiness is a mountain lion?”

T:           “I think humans consider a lion a bigger threat than unhappiness. Or at least they should.”

               Dave realizes he is now walking in his street. He wonders whether lions can turn on stoves and burn his house down. Maybe the lion would do him the favor of staying inside. The quiet is deafening when the soft rustling of the rain drops suddenly stops. Dave parks his bike against the wall and peeks through the living room window. The lion is curled up on the red sofa, a few gnawed ribs slightly hidden in its tummy fur. Dave silently slides the door open and tiptoes to the bathroom. He grabs a marker, bought with the intent to write the birthdays of his friends in his calendar, but had not added any in four years now. 

                              I AM WORKING ON IT

he writes in the middle of his smudged mirror. He observes his reflection through the letters and says, “What makes you happy? Well, the answer is obvious: evict the lion. Does that mean I want to become Keith?”
               Dave realizes that he feels uncomfortable talking to himself and that he wants orange curtains. He sneaks into the living room to his desk, where one lonely volume has been catching dust next to a cactus. One Hundred Years of Solitude had been a present from his friend group. Just like a foreign movie, they said, but then in words and sentences. Dave wipes the cover clean, slowly approaches the sofa and sits down next to the lion. it yaps contently in its sleep and stretches its legs over Dave’s lap. He strokes its soft greyish fur and wrinkles his forehead in preparation of the first sentence.