Did you get all that Marina? Three thousand followers! Since Marina Warner started this twitter account for me, snippets from my story are displayed for anyone to see. To look, and they do. As I write them out, jaws clasped around the small wooden Ikea pencil, Marina types them up. And that’s what I want, to be seen, to be understood. Little did I know, back then, where it would lead me.
‘I simultaneously felt a twinge at the back of my neck or head or upper back, it was hard to feel exactly where. Clenching my fist, eyes only half open, I looked up. A long strand that looked too thick, wiry and black to be my hair seemed to be hovering above me. But it wasn’t hovering. I jumped up in bed, clenching this wiry thing I had gotten hold of. Pulling, this time. Harder. Why wasn’t it coming loose? Something seemed to have become properly lodged into my scalp in the night. I lost balance with the movement of jumping up and landed, nowhere. In fact, I hadn’t moved at all.
Undeterred, I continued to pull. The black wire-like string became taught and the pain in the back of my head grew. I kept pulling, and then there was a sharp release. It felt like a spot had given way to a double fingernail intervention. Instead of fluid on my fingertip, I had a shiny black piece of the wire in my hand. Still lying down, I studied this piece of wire that seemed to have burrowed itself into my skin. It was strong but very flexible and thin like a cat’s whisker.
Mathilda Oosthuizen
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