F: Height of Fashion

Things happen for a reason. All things.

Happen for a reason.

You have to cut the reason loose from an incident, peel it like an old
sticking plaster. It is the core of everything, and its pips are the
keys to letting it out.

I interpret the things that happen to me like dreams. The past has a
hazy quality similar to our nocturnal parallel lives. It's all about
the brain. Meandering. If I see a man sawing at a fence, it means there
will be anger ahead, on a journey. A cow brings news. Happenings are
the living tarot, pictures and signs on the move. The rods are the
flowers, the pentacles are the stars, the swords are knives. The cups
are cups.

You might argue that living in this way gives you a licence, or an
excuse, to befuddle your own life. Going for a walk in a forest, for
example, knowing in advance you will see trees, which mean prosperity.
Resulting in false hopes and a placebo prosperity. It is true; I have
done this before, although without always meaning to. There is nothing
wrong with experimentation. Variety seasons life, makes it sharp on the
tongue or sweet in the gullet. Stab in the back. My mind goes
everywhere.

Somewhere in the Talmud, it says that 'A dream not understood is like
a letter not opened'. I want to slit open my life and read from its
entrails.

I have experimented, as I said, and my example was not merely a random
choice. I have gone walking in the forest before six in the morning,
telling myself I was going for the sunrise and solitude, knowing really
that I was hoping for some kind of windfall, natural or otherwise. It
happened for a reason. The strangest things can be found in the belly
of a fish you had merely intended to cook and eat for dinner.

The morning was blue, the sun hiding as I walked the thin road that
led to the forest. I stopped and plucked at corn from the neighbouring
field, and made a small corn dolly for good luck, or as an offering to
someone. I named her Mathilde and left her by the roadside, wishing for
a face and a home.

It was still dark inside the forest. I wondered if it had a different
sun, a secret, small thing. I kicked at the chalky bottoms of upturned
trees, each one with a little cavern left behind by the roots. I wanted
to be tiny enough to explore them, and big enough to fill them with one
foot.

Forests are like communes for animals. A whole other society exists
just under the leaf mulch of the forest floor.

I walked down a winding path that was barely there beneath the weeds.
Stopping between two holly bushes with evergreen leaves like candle
skin, I kissed a leaf and got a punctured lip as a gift. Blood means
blood. Shaken, I moved on.

Around the next corner I was stopped mid-step. My foot hung in the air
like a rigid pendulum. Ahead was a clearing. It was not clear though,
but filled with remains, remains of a woman's life. I looked around. No
one. The silence was complete. The insects were still asleep, and that
small sun was still a secret. Even in the early morning gloom, I could
see what was there. For what it was, I felt surprisingly wounded.

The trees held women's clothing, neatly hung, arranged from branches
like they were on coat hangers in a wardrobe. The loose earth and twigs
of the forest floor supported packets, tubes, bottles, pots. The
paraphernalia of a woman's routine. Face, hand, foot cream. Eye shadow,
mascara, liner. Shampoo and eyelash curlers, razors and mini sponges,
all in their multiples. And tights, tights everywhere, grey, flesh,
navy blue, black. Tights are made to keep a woman in her place, hold
her together, deny her access to her own sex.

I moved forward gingerly, looking for cameras, bodies, straining to
hear the snapping of sticks but only hearing the ones breaking under
the balls of my feet. This was a deathly house of fun. I could hear the
grotesque masks of comedy and tragedy high up in the trees, laughing
and wailing at me from their twisted faces. I picked my way through the
trash, feeling like an intruder, in this woman's room in a forest.
Stooping, I snatched up a wig. It dangled from my fingers, lost false
hair. I found I was shivering and my body was full of tension and,
reaching out a finger, I touched a dress. Its hem was at my eye level,
slightly tattered. Silk. Nothing bad happened, so I unfurled my fingers
and let my palm glide over it. It felt like I was stroking her thigh,
wherever it was. Then I was afraid, and crouched to the ground, bending
my head, knowing she and it were hovering over the back of my neck,
just hanging. Just there.

I picked up a tube of body lotion, slightly faded, and dirty. From
under it ran a little black spider with tattooed yellow back,
scrambling, seeking cover. I watched it until it had disappeared under
my shoe. Spiders are danger. A giant is coming who wants to crush you
until you are mangled.

I stood up too quickly and felt light-headed. The light seemed to
pulse around me, in and out around the edges of my vision. I stamped
once, hard and quick, on the tube of hand lotion. The lid came off with
a pop and the cream shot out like a snake. Hitting the air, it curled
and died. Perfect white mess. Somewhere, she shuddered, and I hated
her.

I ran, scooping up the wig in a smooth possessive movement, holding it
to my chest like a dead baby. Death means the end, babies are new
beginnings.

I worked at the reason until I was exhausted, probing at it,
frantically sticking my fingers in and licking them all at once.

I think she was like me, and she knew what she had to do.