SEABRIGHT D MORTIMER IS LEARNING TO LOOK AT A FORMER VERSION OF THEMSELF – AND NOT THROUGH FACEBOOK

SEABRIGHT D MORTIMER

Memory is the monster inside us. Someone said that, not me. I can’t remember who. I don’t particularly agree with it. As a writer, I rely on my memory for work; routinely plunging into the watery depths of my years for stimulus. I wonder if it’s a desire to change the past? This phenomenon of digging back into the head-crypt of moving images, objects and things. One must learn to live with all the bodies in one’s head. And mining them for their properties is a way of making sense of the people swirling around up there. How ethical it is, I don’t know. It’s possible these figures get restless and migrate to other organs – the heart and the gut, for food, recreation and a feel around.

Feel around. When I was 12 I had my appendix out and the doctor told me beforehand he’d have a feel around when he was done with the organ in hand, seeing as I’d be open anyway. Flayed for the Gods. He wanted to check other fleshy parts of me were up and working well. The memory of this doctor saying “feel around” has stuck with me. It felt like he was already inside of me like an x-ray and I remember having the distinct feeling he was rummaging in my awake middle as he spoke. This is an involuntary memory, the words “feel around” drew to mind the consultant and the dormant memory roused itself, unbidden, like a patient waking from an operation.