A Mystery Skool Production
by Female Background aka Gabriella D’Italia
Female Background (with images from Jessie Mott, Evelyn Dragan, & Miroco Machiko)
I moved through the forest and at the other end of the trees, where things began to thin out a bit, sat the piano. I knew I would have to deliver the song, in fact he’d started to play it without us, using the sheet music we’d given him and I felt guilty that although I’d written the music, I couldn’t remember it without reading what I’d written down. The sheet music was gorgeously expressed, embellished with golden flourishes: musical instruments, branches, and verdant leaves. I desperately wanted not to sing. I approached the piano and you were ahead of me, more eager to perform. We joined in, you loudly and eager. I lagged behind, in a hopelessly Sisyphean effort trying to conceal my voice with my song. I stayed just at the edge of the dense forest, not coming out completely. I knew that the shame was located in my throat, but as it is invisible, most people don’t quite believe it’s there. If I were making it up it would be humiliating enough, but the true horror was the prevailing notion that the invisible doesn’t exist at all.
A guide was further down a path that emerged from the forest as the trees began to thin. He instructed us on tending a small section of plants and trees that surrounded this part of the path. He made sure to point out a couple of trees that he alone would take care of, as he put it. He repeatedly ran his hand down some of the smaller and more supple branches while warning us from them, “They have venereal disease.”
Female Background (with images from Evelyn Dragan, Miroco Machiko)
