How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found
I wrote this down in my notebook, beside the drawings. Life underground = too loud. The post How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found appeared first on Guernica.
Image source: Disdéri & Cie., Adolphe Bilordeaux (French, born 1807), G.M. Legé (French, born 1809, active Paris, France), et al. [Cartes-de-visite album of French actors, actresses, and dancers], 1860s, Albumen silver print, 44.8 × 32.7 cm (17 5/8 × 12 7/8 in.), 84.XD.428. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. That first night underground, I examined the sketches thumbtacked to the designer’s bulletin board in the costume shop and copied their silhouettes into my school notepad. The poses hinted at a world beyond the page—a glance over a shoulder, a hand shading eyes. One dancer bent to collect a bouquet of red paint droplets. I borrowed the poses, but where there had been women in pointe shoes, I drew my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Fid, and Alison, the victim-witness coordinator who had picked me up from school that day. Now and then, the ceiling above me shook and footsteps knocked across it in a scattered diagonal from
