Mapping The Territory - Seven Years (2)

MAPPING THE TERRITORY - SEVEN YEARS (2)

'Once upon a time (let's say, seven years ago) . . .

'I was married to a man (who was not married to me). A confusing state to be in as I'm sure you clearly see. After all, what should be done about the house and custody of all those ornaments and nicknacks that remain so dear to me?'

(I looked in vain for another planet heading our way.)

'Well.

'The point of man and wife is that you get to share the strife that this life throws at you - clod-like - now and then.

'But.

'When matrimony isn't mutual - think, one-sided kind of nuptials - there ain't nothing that's reciprocal, at all.'

'Why do you speak in riddles?' I forced myself to say.

'Child, it's no major feat to follow (though, I know, it's hard to swallow). I conceive you are deliberately obtuse. . .

(I curled up into a ball; asked 'what's the use?')

'Here's the thing', she continued, unperturbed.

'If a man gives you his ring, he saves you from your kith and kin. (Did you ever meet my family? I forget).

'So, it came as quite a jolt - and I maintain it was his fault - when I divorced him on the grounds of gross neglect.'

Mapping The Territory - Seven Years (1)

MAPPING THE TERRITORY - SEVEN YEARS (1)

'Well, ' said the Priestess, extracting herself in an ungainly manner from her make-shift bolt-hole . . . 

'Given we're still here,' as she downed a Macon Lungy. 'Let me tell you a short story and, forgive, if it affects me. As you know I'm quite emotional (some might deem 'over-theatrical') but I cannot help deep feeling, after all.'

I searched the skies for another potentially-fatal missile heading our way, but all I could see was the Milky Way.

'The story, my child, goes like this . . .'

The Sub-Editor - Junking The Journal

JUNKING THE JOURNAL

She rolled onto her side and turned her head to mine. She kissed me, then whispered in my ear.

'I'm so pleased with myself', she said.

'I've given up authorship and erased my past. Bought a shredder from Tesco; it was shredded so fast. Carthartic and satisfying, if slightly embarrassing. I've saved all the paper I didn't write on. The paper that's left will last a life-time.

'My journals, you see, I try to describe me; but, the minute I don't like me, I buy a new diary. . .

'It's resulted in a lot of wasted paper and time.'

The Sub-Editor - Intervention (3) Photographic Fallacy

 INTERVENTION (3) PHOTOGRAPHIC FALLACY

It is impossible to re-connect properly honestly authentically with the past. 

And, photography: it's a fallacy - a theoretical rhetorical insanity - to believe it can act as substitute (or 'fetish') for the real thing, the real person.

The loved lost body.

The fully embodied, sensate body is precisely what the photographic portrait is not.

A photograph of someone who is no longer alive: it provides neither comfort nor solace. It only reminds one that that person is dead. Arrested in time, the subject refuses to change and fails to get old. The subject refuses and fails to recognise understand respond to who you have (had to) become - in order to survive him.

The photograph, like death, has silenced the subject.

If I remember correctly the Swedish playwright, August Strindberg, believed in a kind of photographic telepathy. He believed he could communicate the subject's true identity, as well as communicate with him (or, in this case, her) through photography.

But, for our character, the power of the photograph is fading fast: badly fixed.

He is no longer sure, even, who the images portray.