woman’s replica or switch mode
Writing Exercise.
Reading Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff “ there were days you felt like waging war, and days when you just needed to go home” pag 29
We walked down Yonge Street, the sounds of wildness and freedom within a certain decadence, some stores with broken glass or the odor of urine quickly forgotten by the aromas of all the Korean products on the corner. Masked faces being sold in tones of $1.50 each, all body things, fluffy things in pastel colors. Labubus or lafufus, bubble tea, cargos, and long pointing nails in a not-so-typical Canadian fall.
We walked down Yonge Street, and, until that moment, around 3:30 p.m., nobody could notice the switch. Maybe the vendor selling me the coins for the stuffed machine, gazing at me while wearing his AirPods and passing me the debit machine with an almost grumpy face, was he also going through the switch?
Earlier that day, when I woke up around 6 a.m., my skin was still smooth like the day before, the skin texture, mango feeling, coconut oil steaming, and my legs and arms all resembled human features, bones - one by one settled like a lego that worked. So indeed, I was human, and the faculty of speaking was still working. I walked as human, step by step. My delicate feet cushioning all the inside echoes. I pronounced the words I was supposed to speak: I said yes more than I wished, only because it would be easier than formulating becauses. “Let’s go there?” “Yes,” I said. A no requires more sentences, while a yes three letters. I was quite like a quiet human should sound on Sundays in Toronto.
I just did what I presumed I was supposed to do, like I had breakfast, the fruits that resembled fruits, tongue feeling the strawberries, almost weird I talked with relatives and they all sounded familiar, the same conversations that go on for years, everything resembling what it was supposed to be, their voices so afar still echoing loud inside. Inside where? including myself after hours of being awake, still managing the resemblance of myself. Myself looked good and smiling; it was not tiring, neither non-natural; it was all genuine, with few words, all resembling what was supposed to resemble.
I told the group I was going to the washroom. In front of the mirror, I let go of that big laugh, as if I were a real woman doing the business of being a woman in the world. All the posts and stories and reels and the tracks of a real woman in real time shared with glitters, soda pop style sounds track, filters and emojis resembling what was supposed to be resembled. A woman and an afternoon Sunday and her delicate feet cushioning all the inside echoing.