I've been working on another fairly demented monologue. I hope you enjoy this one- told by a young, highly delirious and misunderstood woman named Margo...
Impaled at the Sales: It Cut Right Through
So look, let me tell how it happened. You're not going to believe it! It was insane. How I came, to find myself in this completely bizarre situation. It was bizarre, even for me. I can see, you're growing impatient, so I'll just get on with it. I'll get on with the story. I should warn you though, it gets a bit gory- in parts. Anyway I found myself at Westfield in Stratford on Boxing day. I don't really know why I was there, of course I never know why I'm anywhere. But I was there, that much is for sure, though I wasn't really there. I don't know. Let me explain, see I suffer from this condition, well that's was my doctor calls it, he calls it a condition. I'd describe it more as a default way of living- a state of unbeing. It's a mission, explaining it. It's 'real' name is depersonalisation. This condition, it's called depersonalisation. That's a chunky word right there, seven syllables, can you believe that? De-per-son-al-i-sa-tion. I'm a de-person and (alisation), that's a negative right? That's what they put in front of bad words like de-sturbed and de-luded and de-pressed. Hmm, I wonder does that mean I'm less than a person? Forget that, let me break it down for you, in other words depersonalisation- it means- being whacked, smacked, out of it, out of your head, kind of already dead, spaced... whatever you want to call it. It comes and goes. You're not going to get it. You're not going to understand. I don't even know why I'm bothering. Oh God, I did it again, didn't I? I went on off on one, a tangent. I'm a rampant blithering fool. Right, let me just get on with it, let me get on with my story.
So there I was, caught in the crowds at Westfield on Boxing Day. It was noisy, totally and completely manic. I didn't panic. I never do. Nah, I just felt like Zach Braff at the beginning of Garden State, remember when he was sitting on the plane and the music played, that strange Hindi song, faraway and trippy, he just stared on, eyes half open, as everyone around him- the people, they all yelled and screamed and gasped, he showed no emotion, he was spaced out, somewhere else, but then he awoke. In the film, he woke up. But I didn't. In Stratfield, I mean Westford, I mean Westfield, see I just stayed that way- spaced out, displaced, where was I again? Ah yeah, the story.
I think I was in Top Shop when it happened, or H&M. Honestly I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. So there I was swaying from side to side in a sea of people; faceless, nameless people and then someone must have pushed me. I'm not talking a gentle push, I'm talking one great big violent mammoth push. Actually it must have been a whole crowd of people. Anyway I felt something go through me. I didn't feel it, because somehow I stopped feeling a long time ago, remember that depersonalisation stuff I was telling you about? I didn't feel it, but I sensed it. Something was wrong, and then I looked down. I looked down in horror (I think it was horror) at the metal hook protruding from my stomach, there was blood, it seeped all around- spreading and staining. I touched it, I touched the parts around the silver, red covered my hands. It was sticky- not nice. To be honest I couldn't remember much pain. Though I imagined it, I imagined it and then it became real. Well not really real, but dream-like real. The closest to real I get. That was the closest to pain I got. It came in waves, the pain, it was a searing pain. It leaped within and I just weeped in sheer terror, I think it was terror, it might just have been what I thought was terror but was really actually something completely different, maybe like relief or ecstasy or maybe it was nothingness, who knows.
Anyway I remember thinking, and laughing in my head- gosh, what a sad and funny thing, to be here impaled at the sale! By a cold metallic rail, with a hook at its end (no less) and all around the people were still swaying, still moving and grabbing and pushing and pushing and pushing and saying, stuff. Was I the only casualty in that madness, that sadness, I thought? I'm still not sure. But oh it was so sad, the state of the world reflected in that small microcosm. That store. And see the metal slid right through my body, really the body was not mine. But it was still mine. Like, mine. And because of their greed I was just bleeding, bleed, bleed, bleed. Gosh, was it really that necessary, for those people, those nameless, faceless people, to be so unkind for an item of clothing, some fabric weaved together by a poor soul on a different continent, some different world, India or one of them other poor countries like Japan... I mean could that be real. I wonder what real is. Those people, were they being for real? Were they really so fervent and desperate and longing for material. And they call me mad. Gosh, how sad! How. Sad. (I know about sadness.) Sadness, I think, is also another word for depersonalisation. (A less-used one though).
So back to the story, there I was bleeding, in fact by this time a small pool of blood had gathered around my ankles but no one noticed me. Why would they? I don't know what happened then, I screamed, a loud screamed. I screamed out- 'consumers of the world, you have consumed me!' But grab and go! They did not slow, let me tell you that, they sure as heck did not slow. They took NO notice, the bleeding idiots, them crazed fools! Society has rules, you know. And leaving me hanging (literally) is a violation of one of those rules. The men and women (yes both) were all around, and there I was bound to that railing. I was stuck. I was bleeding. The bright lights were feeding into my delirium (another word, for what I've got, I'm sorry I forgot to tell you that one as well) Oh and the noise too, did I mention the noise? It was loud, so loud, that my screams couldn't be heard or fathomed. Dude, I was doomed. Completely! Anyway all this fuss, for some clothes, some cheap clothes and they are so cheap, in a dirty way too, I don't mean to judge I just mean to say, there was a time we didn't care about this stuff. A time before my time perhaps, my nan said. She said it wasn't like this back then, back in them old days. Good days they were, she said. I mean didn't they realise, all those one hundred thousand people in that silly store, that they all looked EXACTLY the same. How lame, is that??
So the pool of blood continued to build by my feet, it rose by a number of inches every few minutes. I was mildly aware, (and I didn't really care) that I was dying. I was dying in a store at the Boxing day sale in Westford, Stratfields. How weird, right? Anyway I sort of felt like a martyr, I thought well hey, at least my dying might change something, when someone does finally notice there's a piece of metal sticking out of my middle and a pool of blood at my feet. So I thought, till then I'll just keep still Anyway in the end I realised it was just another one of my weird visions. Did I mention, I have visions sometimes? Anyway it was just another episode (a head trip). They come and go. Sort of like my condition. I wasn't martyred. I didn't die, not there, not in Forever 21, it was Forever 21 by the way. I found out afterwards. Ha, that would have been a tragic way to die (even though I'm sort of already dead). Errr, why am I telling you this?
