“I
have not seen anything as beautiful as you since I saw a video
recorder and a sewing machine make love on an operation table.”
He
said to me as I posed nude in front of him. It was a Thursday, we were
in his living room, he was etching out my body. I was having him record
my body so I can remember what I was, and thirty minutes in, that was
when he said it.
“Really, “ I said “and what became of it?”
“The sewing machine gave birth to a contraption that spins people’s memory into a yarn and create clothing out of it.”
His
story was that a sewing machine and a video recorder, on one Sunday
morning and by a force beyond their control found themselves going at it
on an operation table. 9 months later the sewing machine gave birth to
what one can only describe it as a spinning wheel with the mouth of a
video recorder.
The
yarn it spun out was made from the memory stored in the video cassette,
and the clothing it made reminded one of what they have forgotten, like
the day he/she was born and his/her father sobbing and recording the
child in pleasure. It reminded them of their past birthdays, when they
stuffed their faces with food and smiled like the world was going to a
place filled with love. It made them remember when they first took that
step on their own, when the world was a lot bigger, when the twilight
stirred not just a thought of endless tomorrows but a feeling like the
shadows creeping in from the window was a visitor who wanted to tell
them stories. It made them remember of nights when they saw ghosts but
they did not scare them, but rather they welcomed the ghosts and the
ghosts in turn crept into their dreams and they danced and played until
the morning came.
“And
after a while, that machine grew into something else thanks to a man
who fell in love with that machine and spilled his blood and semen over
the machine.”
He
said and gave another stroke of brush. It was mid noon now, that time
when kids went out to play and do whatever things that kids do. I heard
loud laughs outside the window.
“As
it grew it turned itself into a thing that not just remembered what
people went through, but it picked up feelings and gave it into the yarn
it spun. The clothing it made now gave them pure feelings, like
happiness, anger, sadness, joy, sorrow, hope and despair and so on.”
People who wore those clothing, he said, put them into a chaos of feeling like they have felt when they were but a child.
Those
who wore joy felt rapture like that of a manic depressive, anger made
them rage on like they were mortally wronged, sorrow like they were
wounded and left to die.
The
clothing gave them feelings that went over their limits and soon many
fell sick, like they were dragged through sands and deserts and ocean
until they could not move their fingers an inch more.
“The problem was that people felt them in full tide.” He said,
“It
came to them like a truck running into them head on, there was just no
way of controlling that feeling. If they were still a child then there
would have been no problem, because there’s no way a child could do any
physical harm, but they were adults and adults could reach out higher
than a child, grab onto things stronger than a child, and it only took
one person who wore anger to grab someone by the neck and snap it right
in half.”
“I’m sorry, but is there any reason why you’re telling me this?”
“Not really, just thought I should say something. The quietness was getting too serious. Just felt like I had to say something.”
“Are you done?”
“Just about. Give me a couple more minutes.”
