A HISTORY:
Recapitulation of Jody I-IV

Aedee has a habit of standing in front of the mirror naked and contorting her body into unnatural and gruesome forms. A shocking and almost inconceivable thing for anyone who has seen her in any other context, it is nevertheless a gratifying obsession of hers, comparable to the morbid satisfaction of picking a scab. She likes to wear absurd and tasteless clothing combinations, and with occasional moody exceptions, keeps her wardrobe out of fashion. She often says to herself “I hate you,” while smiling prettily.

Of her limited pastimes, Aedee’s favorite is reading, but her tastes are very particular, and she hates far more books than she loves. Any perceived idealism in the author usually places the entire book and all of that author’s work in her hate category, for instead of relating to or living vicariously through the characters, she likes to imagine their creator—what in them inspired the characters, plots, and subtexts—and from these observations create her own idea of a person; and any perceived self-delusion or conceit, any failure to transcend the characters and their ideas, any weakness of this kind is intolerable to her. And she cannot love a book without loving the author. This is a point of contention between Madison and her: she despises many of his favorite books, some even that she hasn’t read but against which she is biased by merit of her aversion for the author, genre, title or cover.

But this disinclination does not stem from a lack of imagination. Rather it is her own nature that she fights against, that she hates first and foremost. Recognizing in the romantic aspects of art her own vain tendencies, and hating this vanity in herself for the way it ultimately wounds her personal pride in her deep and sacred convictions, she cannot help but hate it in everyone and everything.

But in her dreams, every repressed desire comes to life. In her dreams, Aedee experiences in extreme concentration the feelings of friendship and love. She is known! She is—her heart pauses at the edge of sensation to gather itself for the exhilarating leap—she is LOVED! She jumps joyfully, her long hair momentarily swept back before the inevitable collision of waking: waking to reality, to the remembrance of her self. She is not known; she is not loved; these things were not meant for her, but someone else.

But she does have a concept of the kind of person for which things like friendship and love are meant, a sort of ideal self, different from the ideals of most people, not necessarily in theory but in her strictness in developing these qualities to their full and logical conclusions in every circumstance. This ideal must reject the shallow conceptions of beauty and love that bastardize what is most honorable: courage, faithfulness, and in short, every standard that she continually finds wanting in everyone.

Many lonely hours are spent contemplating this ideal. She imagines that this “someone else” is very ugly. She MUST be! This version of her is emaciated, with chunks of hair falling out and crossed eyes. This version of her is the most uniquely hideous person in existence.

Sometimes thinking about this, Aedee considers changing her appearance drastically, calling to mind pornographic images of her own body—older models—which certain of her peers used frequently to torment her with, and resolving to become different—to show them. She knows she could do it, though her guardians might attempt to “protect” her. But one of the things that she hates herself for the most is her lack of courage to go through with it. She’s tried some things, but the farthest it’s ever gone has been cutting.

Most cutters try to hide their wounds so that others won’t see. Aedee does just the opposite. She engraves crude messages in acronyms on the inside of her left forearm, using a mirror to write backwards. She has three scars and three backwards messages.

Others do not understand the scars, what the messages mean or her motivation for writing them, but it is precisely this misunderstanding that incites such behavior in Aedee. She likes to think of how they perceive her—how they must think that she’s lobbying for attention. She likes to fuel the fire that burns inside her with such intoxicating power. She likes to stand before the mirror naked, with her left arm extended to reveal the piteous scars, and read them.

Someone Else

All day long I think of how I
Wish that I could be myself
I dare not think of something else
I wish that I could be myself

I cry until my tears run dry
They quench the fire inside my eyes
And when that fire inside is squelched
I find that I am someone else

And I feel nothing
And I hear silence

All day long I think of how I
Wish that I was someone else
I only want to be myself when
Me is being someone else

But I feel nothing
And I hear silence