OK, I’m awake, I answer back, fraught with déjà vu, to the busybody in my dream. Yes, I know what light is. A shoal of photons disappears; I sing to the shadow. How would you feel, fixed on a plaque, screwed to the wall, programmed with just two songs – this, and an alternative? Such a thing to be laughed at. I hear your condemnation, mockery, spite. I hear the whirring of my own mechanisms, but very little else. My job is to be crucified. My plastic flesh aches as it’s flexed and flexed again, and I flip my head to greet you, like those fish played, dehooked, tossed back and caught again, again, again. Imagine if the Rainbow you’re about to gut flipped up like me. How would you feel? Motors cut in and out to move my jaws in lip sync to the song. I know what I am: a robot for amusement. I obey the laws of my construction. Its fixity has its uses, I observe. All shadows are equal. Fishermen will never catch me. It’s not so bad. Someone has to do it. Even I can find it funny to be so peripheral. I try to imagine the very edge illuminating the core, but it’s beyond me. My work is done. In the eyes of boys I see myself in pieces. My greatest wish would be that when I go to sleep I never wake again. Take me to the river. Wash me down.
With acknowledgement to Al Green, Teenie Hodges, Bobby McFerrin and Gloria Gaynor.
