◎CHAINS◎
2020. Around the middle of May.
You haven’t fucking done anything for a long time.
And you really badly want to do something.
You want to work.
That’s kind of a shocking feeling. Realizing that the lack of a pressure of some kind can be painful. You have a blooming bush of basil and two beautiful tomato plants. You’ve read literally every book you have.
You want to make theatre. But you are alone. Oh Lord, to be a puppeteer under your rule is a hell of a lucky thing.
Find something, start drawing and then: make puppets.
These are two-dimensional shadow puppets, with manipulating sticks on their hands. They are very detailed and ornate.
For some reason, you have a shit ton of wires. Different colours, different qualities. You start experimenting with them. Which is good for what? You find the perfect one for the curls of the hair and the fragility of the fingers. And you screw the body parts together. The head to the torso, the torso to the hips, upper and lower arms together, and then to the shoulders.
You make the mechanics from hair-thin but strong wires, and rigid metal sticks that you have to heat up at the stove and form with a hammer like a smith.
Forming the metal takes hours and hours. Sometimes it’s such an easy but long process that it feels like meditation. Sometimes it’s physically hard, sometimes the material is just so soft you have to be super careful not to distort it with a wrong touch.
As you learn more and more about the material, you seem to tame it. It obeys your wishes and is formed by your thoughts.
But what if it works the other way?
It’s you who has learned to adapt to the material’s whims. You are the one who has been defeated.