Screen Shots: in a series of flash fiction for AnOthermag.com, critic and essayist Philippa Snow looks at the interior lives of female characters on screen.
A feeling – wild feeling, cat feeling, meow hissss – of no longer being alone in the room of myself. Hairs standing up on the back of my neck. Hand on the door handle; acid in my throat; a new voice that is Me-Not-Me emanating from my body. Someone turns around and walks back to your car. Do I turn around and walk back to your car? Yes, and no. I am trying to explain it in the simplest terms I can, because surely you want it explained. You are not, I hope, a monster. (Maybe I am a monster now, but all I can say about that is that I did not get to choose.) You know how they say the lights are on, but no-one’s home? Well, it’s sort of the opposite: I’m home, still, but something is in there with me, and the lights are only on because It wants me to see everything that happens around me, as if I am watching a film of my life. I watch you happening to me again and again, every night. I am sorry that my cat died. I am sorry that your cat died. I wish it had been me. Put her out of her misery. Kindest thing to do. I am taking off my clothes, and I am blazing with shame, and so afraid, and all your dreams are coming true, and I’m just so sorry that your cat died when it should have been me, please God let it be me next time who is thrown in the garbage to rot, let it be me. I have never looked better; I am wearing so few clothes; I did not know that it was possible for me to smile this widely. I did not know that I had this many teeth in my head. When you fuck me, I sound just like every woman in the videos you’ve seen; my sweet nothings are so sweet they make everyone who hears them feel violently ill. Say the word “love” enough, and it loses all meaning. On one fleeting occasion, It allows me to write, and what comes out of me is nothing like the writing in my novel-in-progress – it is nastier, truer, a free, ugly voice from a place I do not recognise, a voice which makes me realise why everyone has said for so long that real artists are madmen and madwomen. Well, I guess I’m a real artist now, babe, and isn’t that cool?
I think if someone asked you, you would say that you were kind to me. It’s true that you do kind things, almost all of which you learned from the movies. You are kind by theft, or force. I ASK FOR NONE OF IT, AND STILL FEEL IT ALL. I ASK FOR NONE OF IT, AND STILL FEEL IT ALL. I ASK FOR NONE OF IT, AND STILL FEEL IT ALL. I ASK FOR NONE OF IT, AND STILL FEEL IT ALL. I ASK FOR NONE OF IT, AND STILL FEEL IT ALL. I ASK FOR NONE OF IT, AND STILL FEEL IT ALL. I am screaming this over and over again, because it seems you don’t believe me. Or at least: I am saying it again and again in my head, because I’ve no mouth left to scream with. I am two eyes and an orifice, everything open even when I do not want it to be open. You’d think I would get used to it after a while, but the body is not built to withstand something like this: two people pushed roughly inside it, both you and the Me-Not-Me, and it hurting like hell, every cell, every thought, every word, every kiss, every cut, every new degradation. I soil myself – vomit, shit, piss, everything – to make myself vile to you, and all you do is make me take a shower. I feed you the remains of your cat because I want you to realise that swallowing and digesting a thing you supposedly care for until none of it is left is disgusting, not romantic, and all you do is speak to me as if I am a child that has been bad. There is a night when It somehow falls asleep while I’m awake, and this night is the worst one of all. I am finally free to tell you honestly about my desire to die, and I ask for your help. You could kill me! It would be so very easy, even moral, in comparison with all the other things you have been doing until now. You start crying, and for a moment I actually believe you are crying for me—my pain, my terror, my insanity, the 24-hour paralysis I live through every day while you play house with the mad, malfunctioning doll of my body. What’s so bad, you eventually ask, about being with me? This is when I know once and for all that I have never been less seen or more alone in my life. Say the word “love” enough, and it sounds worse than death. Put her out of her misery. Kindest thing to do. Meow hissss.
