EYELASHES (1996)

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He was having difficulty with a woman

'It's her eyelashes', he said.

They defy his imagination. 

When he tries to picture her he can't figure out how long they are-

whether she grew them herself 

or if she bought them in some unknown place

where they were sold like rare and sleeping creatures. 

He can't decide if they are so completely ordinary 

that he should ignore them and continue on

with the rest of the story

or so absolutely extraordinary 

that it is impossible to continue

without carefully considering each lash

as if it is a small but intricate instruction

in an extremely complicated and important experiment. 

He thinks the instructions involve themselves

with a million tiny movements

that slowly lead the experimenter

to something obscure but beautiful.

'Maybe', he says, 'when it is finally finished,

it will look a bit like a wink'. 

'At other times', he says,

'...those eyelashes just hang around her eyes',

in such an anonymous, casual kind of way,

that it makes him uneasy.

They bunch together like a small,

carefully constructed crowd scene

that has two or three spies concealed within it.

Every now and then one falls out.

It always looks like an accident. 

After a while it becomes clear

that those eyelashes  are holding his imagination hostage.

The rest of the story is gone.

He doesn't know it yet,

but it might not be coming back. 

​

-Jaki Irvine    (Anke Dessin: voiceover)