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You sit in front of the lit-up mirror, trying to hold back a whiskery grin. Your own face grins wonkily back at you; red-flushed skin smoothed and evened until you look as if you’ve been ironed out, smooth, flawless, powdered down with fine particles of whiteish-orange.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You look luscious. Beautiful. That’s the best way to describe it.
PERCEPTION: The scent of lavender that still hasn’t quite dissipated yet hovers in the air. The sharp smell of hairspray and some sweet musky perfume.
LOGIC: Not yours- the previous owner of this dressing room.
PERCEPTION: The smell of rich old ladies, floral and powdery, dry and pale pink. The smell of mothballed fur coats and waxy lipstick.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It makes you want to sneeze.
INLAND EMPIRE: It smells like old ladies. Delilah had smacked you on the arm for voicing that opinion. I’m letting you use my makeup, you catty thing. You could at least be polite about it.
You let yourself smile into the mirror. It’s stiff, of course, the right side of your face struggling to match the left, but you purse your lips as best you can, the way Delilah showed you to show off the makeup to the best effect.
PERCEPTION: Lips outlined in pink, overlined first with a pencil and then filled in with a watery matte lipstick that dries on your skin and brings out all the dry patches on your lips.
LOGIC: Something cheap, you think, from the corner stand at the drug store. Probably with a high percentage of drying alcohol.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: It is carefully outlined with a CKY Pout Liner in the shade Bubble Pop, a darker bubblegum pink. The lipstick itself is an Arabella SuperStay 24h Lip Pigment in the shade Electrosexual Salmon. Polyethylene, Octyldodecyl Stearate, Diisopropyl Adipate, Isocetyl Stearoyl Stearate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retynl Palmitate, Red 7 Lake (C6507 D&C Red #7 Calcium Lake)...
INTERFACING: A hell of a job to put on, even with Delilah carefully guiding you. Still, you’ve a steady hand.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: A perfect pink pout beneath your thick bristle brush moustache.
PERCEPTION: The lipstick is texture-wise your least favourite part.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Oh, but baby, your favourite part is the eyes. You’ve never felt so lovely.
PERCEPTION: The eye makeup is a blue powder, deepened at the exaggerated crease with a deep indigo and highlighted at the inner corner with a pigmented white. The lid is packed with sparkles, holographic, like the rainbow flares that you see in the reflective bits of radio filaments. False lashes, like spiders legs, curl up dramatically at the corners.
The whole look is a campy outdated style very much associated with the New and every time you blink a fine mist of glitter dislodges itself from your artificially thickened black lashes and swirls prettily in the light from the milky white bulbs that surround the mirror. The glitter sticks to your mutton chops. You’ll be sparkling like a glitterball for days after this; a glitter infestation, transmitting to everything you touch. You’ll find chunks of glitter in unexpected places for months.
INLAND EMPIRE: In the filter for your morning coffee. Caught in the pages of your library books. Tucked into the seam of Kim’s gloves.
EMPATHY: He won't complain, not really. He likes the little reminders of you throughout the day when he finds bits of glitter stuck to his cheek or to his tools. He's glad you're doing this, finding a creative outlet for all the chaos that you hold inside yourself. He likes watching you on stage; catharsis, living vicariously through you. You've been running the youth theatre club here for a few months now and he's loyally turned up to watch every single performance.
INLAND EMPIRE: Sandwiched uncomfortably between parents and kid siblings of your little group. He avoids interacting with the kids as much as possible but he's quietly and fiercely proud of you every time you step out to fill a roll, to pad out the numbers of your little flock. Even through the cheap stage lights, you see him clapping.
LOGIC: This is something new, though. Your theatre group runs every Tuesday and Thursday from four til six. Today is a Friday and you are here at eight, for Delilah's monthly Jamrock Variety Show. The last Friday of every month. A more adult form of entertainment, certainly, and a lot more geared towards the Underground. She's a harsh director, curating her acts with an unnerving sternness, but you know for sure that if she approves of your act then it must be decent.
HALF-LIGHT: Your stomach turns a little.
INLAND EMPIRE: Butterflies. Blue and green and iridescent, like an oil spill on tarmac.
HALF-LIGHT: Fear. You feel more naked like this, under layers of fabric and creams and powders, than you would if you were completely unclothed.
LOGIC: It’s just stage fright.
SAVOIR FAIRE: But there's no need. You're going to absolutely kill it out there. Have you seen yourself? You’re a killer queen. A dynamite doll.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You were born for this, baby-boy. Or baby-girl, now, right?
DRAMA: You look exquisite, my lady.
You blink. Your false lashes gently caress your cheeks. A warm comfortable feeling bursts in your chest.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Huh. That feels… right.
HALF-LIGHT: Again, fear twists in your gut. Not stage fright this time; this is real, crawling fear.
LOGIC: It doesn't have to be forever. Just while the outfit's on, maybe?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The fear is nothing compared to the rush of dopamine that floods your skull. My lady. It fits like a glove.
CONCEPTUALISATION: They're just words, after all. You can take them on and off like your outfits.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: All I know is that now the door's been opened, I never want to let you go back inside.
CONCEPTUALISATION: You belong here. On the stage in front of the glowing lights. In the comfort of this little overcrowded dressing room.
INLAND EMPIRE: Everything found or hand-made or traded; every item with a story.
PERCEPTION: The dresses and shirts that crowd the clothes racks, the big plastic storage boxes of accessories, the strings of beads and chains that festoon the mirror. The scarves strung between the beams of the ceiling. A pair of tree standees from the last play your youth group put on propped up against the wall. There's a plastic crown hung from the coat stand, a yellow umbrella, a bowler hat and a yellow feathered straw cap. In one of the crates, shoved underneath the unstable makeup table, there are two halves of a two-person horse costume.
INLAND EMPIRE: Stories of showmances and first-ever recitals, flubbed lines and closing night tears. Amateur dramatics and professionals furious at the size of their dwindling stage and heartbroken chorus dancers and kids so excited to see the show unfold from the other side of the curtain.
CONCEPTUALISATION: The air is thick with words, with stories and performances. Communal art.
INLAND EMPIRE: Every garment with a voice. They’re all very loud.
PERCEPTION: The pink imitation feather boa, coiling like a long-necked bird, hanging down from the coat stand beside the door, is loudest. It talks in a soft hissing voice. It is soft and beautiful and when you take it down and touch the soft feathers to your skin it coils itself around your neck like the most beautiful hug. It shimmies around your shoulders. Beautiful.
RHETORIC: Fake feathers, of course.
SAVOIRE FAIRE: No cockatoos harmed in the making of this glorious vision.
BUBBLEGUM PINK FEATHER BOA: Look at yourself, darling. Look how wonderful you look.
INTERFACING: How you feel. The sequins are so tactile.
CONCEPTUALISATION: You shine. You’ve become the disco ball.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You're wearing your own hot and ready dopamine supply. The twinkles set off receptors in your brain that have lain dormant for years.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: The human desire for sparkly objects, the attraction towards glitter, is thought to be an evolutionary benefit, helping your ancestors to spot and seek out fresh water sources. Naturally the eye is drawn towards things that shimmer, silver and turquoise and aquamarine, because that is where the life-source lies. A primitive desire for a vital resource.
BUBBLEGUM PINK FEATHER BOA: Yes, beloved. It is your evolutionary imperative to shine and be beautiful. To feel soft things and to sparkle. A raindrop. A gem.
You roll your shoulders, admiring the way the dim pink light hits your sequins and throws rainbows over the walls, the ceiling beams, reflecting in the mirror a thousand million times over. Shards of rainbow light. You run your hand through your mutton chops, watch the glitter puff out and away, give them a gentle tug.
PERCEPTION: They’re soft now. So much softer than they used to be. In the first few months of being back in your Jamrock flat you’d rediscovered the long-lost concept of taking care of yourself. All these complicated rituals of hair washing and shaving. Little homages to your exhausted body, little thank-yous for surviving. And with all of that had come an experiment in using conditioner on your mutton chops.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: An excellent idea; Kim had gotten even more tactile with them after that.
EMPATHY: Delilah had wanted to shave them off while she was doing your makeup- finish the job, get a perfect beat- but you’d insisted on keeping them. That way you don’t feel like someone else; you feel like yourself when you see your reflection.
INLAND EMPIRE: The first time you met her you were tidying up after your youth drama club and she was dropping off a bag-full of mended costumes and restyled wigs for some of the acts. A veneer of dusty glamour over her; older, maybe in her sixties, six feet tall with long grey hair and wrapped in a beaded shawl that clattered softly when she moved, which she did, often. She shares your habit of talking with your hands and each time she raised her hands to gesture the black tear-shaped beads would slip down her forearms and click together and catch the light. You’d gotten talking, just about costumes at first- how maybe she’d let you borrow some of the cabaret costumes for your kids and their pantomime that you’d been rehearsing for months. Crowns and big gaudy plastic necklaces and long velvet capes. And then in turn you’d offered your help for the cabaret night, just a bit of muscle to move set pieces and get the lighting sorted.
CONCEPTUALISATION: The first time you’d seen the show, from backstage, arms full of boxes and standing awkwardly to keep the weight off your hip, you’d fallen in love.
SAVOIR FAIRE: The glitz. The glamour.
LOGIC: …it’s a tiny underfunded community theatre in the ass-end of Boogie Street. How glamorous can it be?
SAVOIR FAIRE: Excessively.
CONCEPTUALISATION: A room full of artists. It had felt so oddly familiar.
INLAND EMPIRE: The first time she’d asked you if you wanted to perform you’d laughed. But then… you’d thought about it. Constantly, actually. It had eaten away at the lettuce of your brain like a persistent caterpillar.
CONCEPTUALISATION: You’re a cockatoo, after all. A peacock. Maybe even a butterfly.
INLAND EMPIRE: You don’t have to dress up, she said. We take any acts. You could sing, if you like. But it was the queens who’d hypnotised you. Delilah, obviously, running the show in her Revachol East rich old lady clothes that looked brilliant under the show lights and all motheaten under the regular lights. The other queens- a singer, a dancer, a comedian. A couple of kings--
COMPOSURE: You approve of that. Very futuristic.
INLAND EMPIRE: --And an assorted gaggle of other performers. All different flavours of unique.
CONCEPTUALISATION: So the idea started to grow on you too. Like the leopard print unitard back in Martinaise, the soft worn fabric and the comfortable androgyny of its skin-tight form, until this thought project was complete and it too became something you couldn’t take off.
You: Me but better.
VOLITION: You’re doing a damn sight better than the state of you a year ago. You’re healthier now; just as pink and just as beer-bellied, but you’ve filled out a lot now that you’re not killing your appetite with speed.
VOLITION: You're not a cop anymore but this feels like the last vestiges of sorry-cop-ishness leaving your body. You don’t feel like apologising with a face like this.
AUTHORITY: The world should be apologising to you. Bowing down. There’s something powerful about this alien face, with its arched eyebrows and pouted pink lips, that’s still so immutably your own. Your fingers tug through the mutton chops again. Besides, you couldn’t shave them off, not again. Kim wouldn’t say anything, of course, not after last time, but you know he prefers you hairy. He likes having a handle to hold on to, a way to position your head the way he likes it. Handles on the sides of your head.
Your grin splits open, your pink-painted mouth curling open in your reflection.
PERCEPTION: The mirror is old, square, with a hairline crack in the corner and a border of lights that line up neatly around the edge. Maybe half of them work. There is a pink silk scarf with a paisley pattern draped over the top row of lights, softening their brightness, making the light that hits your face slightly pink-tinged. There are photos tucked into the frame, tiny little pictures taken with an ancient Trigat B+W Portable, the predecessor to the Trigat Mini, in black and white. Tall ethereal women with three feet tall wigs and mile high shoes, lipstick smiles, holding bunches of flowers and standing in front of stage lights. Drag kings in costumes that resemble the uniform of RCM officers, if RCM officers dressed in a lot more leather and didn't wear shirts underneath their patrol jackets. Delilah, rolling her eyes at the camera, in her pointy-toed LaFantaisies, sat on a chair with cigarette holder in hand, directing her latest show from her uncomfortable folding chair.
CONCEPTUALISATION: Artists at work. You’re lucky to know them.
PERCEPTION: The mirror was salvaged from the skip outside the Grand Opera House east of the river and hauled all the way back here to Jamrock Central Community Theatre by some of the kids from your youth group, saved from landfill. You were surprised when the lightbulbs around the frame still turned on after a few weeks out in the elements. You run a finger along the hairline crack on the surface. Along the contours of your reflection, the unfamiliar beauty of your new eyes. The blue shadow brings out the green of your irises in stark contrast.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm.” You jump and turn. Kim is standing by the narrow doorway, squeezing in through the overabundant racks of costumes and dresses, the piled high boxes of accessories.
You: “Kim! You made it.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Of course I made it.” He’s not smiling, but there is the warm sound of a smile in his voice and you want more than anything to hug him. He has his hands tucked behind his back, standing stick-straight, a cog out of place in a machine that no longer needs it, his eyes darting around like he’s casing a crime scene. He takes a slow breath as he crosses the room and presses a careful kiss to the top of your head. The smell of hairspray, of propellent and of artificial coconuts, tickles his nose. He can’t feel your warmth, of course, not through the layers of brassy blonde acrylic threads that make up the brassy wig, but the gesture is appreciated. His lips twist, a little. “I wouldn’t miss this.”
EMPATHY: His eyes dart to the door again. He’s waiting to be caught. He feels like a naughty child, sneaking into forbidden places without permission, just waiting to be caught and sent to bed without dinner.
INLAND EMPIRE: The community theatre, the whisper-publicity of Delilah's cabaret nights in the crummy little theatre on Boogie Street, has called to him for years. Trying to draw him in. He’s never given in to the temptation till now, scared that someone would see him, and he’s still holding all of that tension in his shoulders. Like any second now he’s expecting Pryce to pop out of one of the spare costume bins and dress him down on the spot. It’s only been a month since he finally handed in his notice at the precinct and it’s like he’s still being haunted by the spectral cop in his brain. Behavioural patterns have worn deep grooves into the malleable grey stuff of his brain and it’s hard for him to reroute the paths. It will go. It will fade with time, you are sure. Distance helps. Kim seems to enjoy his new work at the garage on Fourth Street, he enjoys the lessened rent burden now that you're sharing his flat. Life is better than it was. He’ll get there.
You: You gesture to your new face. “What do you think?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Hmm.” Kim raises a gloved hand, threads it through your mutton chops--
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: See? That's why we didn't let her shave them!
KIM KITSURAGI: --and turns your head this way and that, examining you with an affectionate critic's eye. “Delilah did your makeup.” It’s a statement, not a question. “It’s neater than when you tried to do it. I like it, but I liked your way too.” A bit more chaotic. A bit more cathartic. Big arching wings. You'd struggled to get them even and so you'd kept making them larger and larger until they extended nearly all the way to your hairline. Drawn on lower lashes. You hadn’t known how to block out your eyebrows, so you’d just filled them in like two fat chunky caterpillars. “It’s very pretty. You’re very pretty." And he does smile now, and leans forward like he’s going to kiss you, then stops himself.
SAVOIR FAIRE: The makeup!
You: You press a kiss to his gloved palm instead, and are mildly surprised by the staying power of your lipstick. It doesn't leave a mark on the dark leather. “Thank you, baby.”
KIM KITSURAGI: An eyebrow raised in challenge. “Don’t call me baby.”
AUTHORITY: The effect has worn off somewhat, now, with overuse. He does the same thing whenever you leave dishes in the sink or track mud on the carpet or let your library books lapse past the due date. A single raised Eyebrow of Authority.
INLAND EMPIRE: You love him so much.
You: “Sweetheart.”
KIM KITSURAGI: Sigh. “No.”
COMPOSURE: But he's cracking. It won't take long for him to break.
You: “Darling. Sugarplum.” You sweep an arm out suddenly, catching Kim at the back of his thighs and pulling him onto your broad sequined lap. "Honey pie. Dumpling. Sugar-sweeting."
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry!” Kim puts up a token struggle, the kind that isn’t really a struggle at all. His chin smushes against your forehead, his arms coming naturally to grab at your shoulders. You can feel him shaking with repressed laughter. “Careful of your dress!”
You: “Baby,” you say again, and your voice rasps. You wrap your arms around Kim’s waist. “I’m not worried about the dress.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Well, you should be,” Kim snips, wriggling. His bony backside digs into your thigh. It is not comfortable but it is nice to be close, still. “It took me hours.”
LOGIC: Longer than hours.
INLAND EMPIRE: Fiddling with the internal mechanisms of the sewing machine, overlocking edges and stitching in the zip. Hand-sewing on each individual clacky sequin onto the neckline because Harry found a job lot of them at the market for a few centim. A fitted dress that clings and flares in all the right places. A labour of love.
ENYCLOPEDIA: Inspired by the glittering fashions of Sur-la-Clef musical darling Amarie deChastain, the sequined fabric mimics her signature turquoise blue colour and matches your makeup perfectly. She was a singer most popular in the disco-bopping era of the New, naturally, known for her waist length faux blonde hair and mile-high white gogo boots, as well as her taste for sequins and hoop earrings.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: A vision. A wonder. The Perfect Woman.
SAVOIR FAIRE: You plan to embody her entirely tonight.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: She peaked in popularity maybe twenty years ago, following her tragic death in a vehicle accident. The car was being driven by her lover, well-known motor racer Vivi Corolla, who also perished in the crash. The loss of this disco powerhouse, combined with the socioeconomic climate, is one of the main factors given in disco's decline.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: But maybe it’s time for the corpse of disco to be resurrected. Get that old body moving.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: The dress shifts an iridescent blue-gold, with a fitted bodice and a short glittery skirt that sends little fractures of light shimmering off the ceiling whenever you move. The style is commonly called the New Look, popular in the thirties.
INLAND EMPIRE: You definitely remember trying to pull a girl in a very similar outfit back in the day.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: But you wear it better. The confidence fills it out in all the right places. If you shimmy your shoulders, the sequins clattering sounds like dancing music.
INTERFACING: It's so tactile to run your hands over too. You never ever ever want to take it off. A new favourite thing, out of all the things that you have.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim shifts on your lap, tutting, fussing over the side seams. “It’s not like a machine-made garment. It’s delicate.”
You: “And it’s a masterpiece,” you say, grinning. “I treasure it.” Kim is inches away from your face. You want to kiss him, but you can’t, not with all that makeup. You don’t want to know what Delilah will do to you if you smudge it, after all the work she put into it. “But I’m more interested in the masterpiece in front of me.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Tch.” Kim scoffs. He’s trying hard to look unamused, trying to keep his balance on your lap without crushing the sequins. One hand leaves the back of your neck to trace along the silky nylon fabric of the underskirt where the sequinned overlayer has ridden up instead. The prickly acrylate discs, sharp at the edges, and the soft stretchy fabric beneath. The full curve of your body beneath the dress, the way it catches the light when it moves. The way the blue stretchy nylon clings to your chest with static electricity, the way it bounces light off your face, your jaw, the dimple on your chin. The chest hair that he can see peeking from beneath the cheap turquoise fabric. He's transfixed.
COMPOSURE: Losing his cool a little. You can see the tips of his ears blushing.
KIM KITSURAGI: The corner of his mouth lifts. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
You: “Only the really sexy talented ones.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He scoffs, fingers playing with the narrow strap keeping the dress on your shoulders. It makes you look even broader than usual. Emphasises the bicep girth. “This is good,” he says quietly. “You look really good.”
You: “I’m just the canvas. It’s all your work.” Harry shrugs, his cheeks pinking beneath the mask of pan makeup. “Well, you and Delilah."
KIM KITSURAGI: “It’s your design.” He chuckles, brings his hand to his mouth for a moment. “Your… energy. It’s all you.” He’s so close that you’re going cross-eyed trying to look at him.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: All you, baby.
SAVOIR FAIRE: You’re self-made.
KIM KITSURAGI: With his other hand he tucks a lock of blonde behind your ear, and the butterflies in your stomach flutter.
HALF-LIGHT: Not just butterflies. A whole lepidopterarium.
You: "I’m nervous,” you say.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm. You? Nervous about making a scene?” Kim taps your shoulder fondly, smoothing the strap back into place and leaning back to peer at your face. “Not that I want to encourage your melodramatics, but do you remember one of the first things you ever said to me?” You frown, but Kim keeps talking. He smells of motor oil, up close. He’s cleaned himself up after work- of course he has, fastidious as a cat- and mostly he smells of his Taiga super special aftershave but there’s a dark smudge of oil at his hairline that he's missed, left behind where he’s brushed the loose strands out of his way. “You’re a superstar. This is exactly where you’re meant to be; centre stage.”
You: “What if I mess it up like I messed up the karaoke at the Whirling?”
KIM KITSURAGI: He smiles. His hand cups your cheek. He is cold to the touch still, carrying the chill of the evening air outside with him. “I liked your karaoke.”
You: “You’d like it if I got up on stage and just tripped over my own feet for the full five minute number.”
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim tilts his head to the side, considering. “True,” he says eventually. “That would be amusing.”
You: "For you, maybe."
KIM KITSURAGI: "You'll be fine," he says firmly. His tone brooks no argument. “You won’t trip. You’ll be great.”
VOLITION: You will be fine. There is no alternative. No matter what, he will make it okay.
PERCEPTION: Reassuring, the soft feathers of the boa stroke your face. Outside the dressing room, you can hear the faint sound of the audience--
DRAMA: Your adoring public, sire!
PERCEPTION: --all ready and waiting for you. Clapping. Talking. The buzz and hum of human life.
INLAND EMPIRE: Delilah’s out there, warming up the crowd, getting everyone excited. She’s an old queen, used to donning her flawless makeup and captivating her audience. There’s a usual crowd, enjoying the familiar jokes and atmosphere.
PERCEPTION: You can hear them laughing.
HALF-LIGHT: Like baying wolves.
BUBBLEGUM PINK FEATHER BOA: But you’re the leader of the pack, darling. Shimmery, beautiful, captivating every single eye.
PERCEPTION: Kim stands up, hand trailing over your shoulders. His touch is grounding.
CONCEPTUALISATION: Like the cool steady earth that covers the face of Elysium. A common return path for an electrical current. He stops you from sparking, panicking.
KIM KITSURAGI: He crosses the room to the stage door, listens for a moment. “She’s wrapping up her introduction,” he says. “Getting close to your cue. Are you ready?”
HALF-LIGHT: Deep breaths.
VOLITION: You can do this.
BUBBLEGUM PINK FEATHER BOA: I’ll be with you every moment. It’s going to be wonderful.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim straightens your skirt, fusses at the hem, steps back to give you one last look-over. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet slightly. He’s excited on your behalf, living through you.
EMPATHY: This isn’t just for you. It’s for him too.
BUBBLEGUM PINK FEATHER BOA: Sweat and glitter. You’re dizzy-sick off the glamour of it all, aren’t you, sweetheart? Anticipating all of it. The heat of the stage lights on your face. The smell of melting pan makeup. The sticky stage floor under foot, masking tape marks from past performances, the heavy velvet curtains, the low hum of the scavenged old speakers that are just starting to play the first few notes of your music.
PERCEPTION: The swell of applause. Delilah comes stepping offstage, all seven-and-a-half feet of her in her glittery red heels and her piled-up pin-curled wig and rich old lady stole around her shoulders, and touches your arm with a sweaty hand as she heads to the dressing room to find a throat sweet and throw back some water. Break a leg.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim gives you a nod, short and sharp, and says more with that than he ever could with words.
EMPATHY: Good luck, break a leg, I’m so proud of you, you’re going to be amazing.
BUBBLEGUM PINK FEATHER BOA: Time to go, beloved.
EMPATHY: You take a deep shaking breath. Slow, in—out.
VOLITION: Straighten your shoulders, pick up your cane, close your eyes for a moment.
SHIVERS: I’M WATCHING. YOU’RE A STAR REFLECTING IN THE PUDDLES ON BOOGIE STREET. A SEQUIN BLOWN INTO THE CRACKS OF THE PAVEMENT. I SEE YOU AND I LOVE YOU.
PERCEPTION: The white spotlight makes you blink. The world for a moment is shrouded in glitter as the sparkles fall in clouds from your eyelashes. You step out onto the stage—
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: --and you are wonderful.