Ventriloquism

The bluebird was perched high up in a tree, singing its famous always essentially the same but always changing in some way song of love. I couldn’t understand the words of the song although they sounded romantic, obviously, and also optimistic, not so obviously. The boughs of the tree were laden with leaves, green as grass. I couldn’t see the bird, I could only hear it, but I know it was the bluebird of love. I’m sure it was.

If I could describe what I was going through at the time, I’d maybe compare it to when you take an axe to a ventriloquist’s dummy and crack it open, and out of its insides into the air float words, hundreds of them, and they are like snowflakes, fabulous and enchanting one moment but as soon as you grab hold of them they are gone, turned to water. It was something like that, anyway.

The bluebird flew ahead of me as I walked. I followed its, well, not footsteps exactly…. Then a not unattractive but a not altogether very attractive hooker grabbed my arm and tried to pull me into an alley. She was saying “Love. Two hundred.” over and over and pointing to a doorway wherein I suspect heaven or hell lurked, depending on my luck. But all I wanted was someone to tell me how I might capture once and for all the bluebird of love.

It’s not easy being a ventriloquist. People are always looking to see if your lips move, or listening for a word to sound wrong and funny. Also, when at last you have something important to say they’re not listening, because the next act is on stage and you’re back in your room, on your own, with only a dummy for company. Nobody understands that you are one person, and the dummy is another, quite different person.

At one point in the next hour I tried to say “Out of your mouth everything comes naturally, which is beautiful” but either I used the wrong words or my tones were wrong, and I was comprehensively misunderstood, because the next thing I knew I was flat on my back with the imprint of a length of lead pipe decorating my skull. But when I pulled myself together we were as we always had been, strangers yet friends, salesgirl and customer, idiot boy and hopeless idea.

The bluebird was perched on the windowsill watching us through the rain-and-dust-stained glass. Except the window had no glass, the house being poor, with holes in the roof, and it was necessary to imagine things being better than they were. So I imagined things until they became the same as better things, and for a few moments I was in the clutch of a fairly okay feeling, even though neither my hostess nor I had anything to say to each other. I tried moving my lips out of courtesy but nothing happened. The next time I looked over to the window, the bluebird of love was gone.

Clown

I stand in front of a thousand people and step outside of myself. Neither they nor I know exactly what this means but most of us almost enjoy it, and some people are completely sold on the idea. Extreme disorientation can be upsetting but not always. Sweat is dripping off every limb, my arms tattooed with the bluebird, and off lots of other things too. It’s good to be nervous.

Here’s another thing I don’t really understand: they are happy to see me beyond the boundary. I smile and, not knowing if I am happy or not, smile again. This time it lasts longer. Once upon a time, in a world I have left far behind, a smile was rarer than a, um, you know….. it was very rare….. Bucket of water, custard pie -- those are part of the everyday, but life is more complicated than that. Ha Ha. Excuse me, I have to fall over hilariously.

When I am hit on the head I don’t feel it. Soon I will be dead. This is not only an example of, I think, an internal rhyme (in a chunk of prose, too, which is a new comedy manoeuvre) but also a statement of the not so obvious. Oh, how they laughed.

The cost of this act is not outweighed by the price of it. When I go out shopping I tell myself that I’m not shopping and I’ll look the other way, but then along it all comes, and I am sucked in, and I am useless in those conditions. I can’t always be funny. And the thing I end up shopping for, I can’t even bring it home. But in my skin everything is tight, and then I relax as if suddenly all my questions have found answers. I have no more questions. My clothes fit very badly. I’m serious.

If you are my friend, you are. I can’t be. But I am also not too bad. Thank you. You’re welcome. Come and see me again some time when the bluebird is in your sky.

If I had more money I would do more. A lot of it would be for fun. Some of it would be for me, some altruism, and some would be for the world, selfish. Nothing is simple but I am tired. If only I didn’t have to do this, if only I didn’t have to be someone who isn’t really there. Can a thousand people be wrong? I know. Try to sleep. I wake up, and then I wake up.

Acrobatics

Stumbling from one crumby barstool to the next, the most difficult thing was not how not to fall but how to fall with a grace and elegance becoming one so traditionally graceful and elegant. And the thing about picking yourself up and dusting yourself down is how to do it and still be attractive to the people you long to be attractive to, many of whom are watching your show.

From out on the highest balcony the concrete of the real world is sickeningly far down. I wish I had never agreed to climb so high if it’s only to tumble so far to the second half of my life with an assortment of twists and turns, with no safety net and only Bing Bing for brief company. If there is someone waiting to look to catch me then maybe I can do it, but I’ve asked and so far there’s been no answer. I don’t know who is running this circus.

I don’t know who is running this circus. I go to the office and ask for my paycheque and my food allowance and I’m told to go take a run and jump. I think they think that’s funny.

I was in the air this afternoon, defying gravity in my imagination as much as I could, but not at all in reality, and I think I saw the bluebird of love. Maybe I was mistaken. When you are flying, and necessarily distracted, moments can be fleeting, and so much turns out to be illusory.

Is that the sound of laughter or merely a trick of the ear as the wind rushes in and out of my head as I execute a cody? Of course, you know that’s a back somersault in tuck, pike and straight position, then a three-quarter back somersault, followed by a front drop to back drop with a straight-body position. You have to know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be my friend and I wouldn’t be confiding in you like this.

Back in my bed, I think about what life might have been like had I kept my feet on the ground. A cloud floats past my window and then is gone; I don’t know why I have taken to my nest so early in the day. Bing Bing called to say she enjoyed our time together, but I don’t even remember who Bing Bing is. Maybe she was one of my delightful assistants. I lose track.