c o n t r i b u t i o n s
Sitting at my desk at work recently, I noticed the small scar on my right thumb. It's still there. I started thinking about it. The story behind that scar. I like to tell it to myself every now and then. It fascinates me.
The Scar.
Living with my girlfriend in a small flat in Ringwood, a suburb of Melbourne. She was on holiday up in Queensland with her family. Her birthday was to fall soon after she arrived home, so I had plenty of time to myself in which to find her a suitable present. I thought about presents, money, birthdays, and decided that it just wouldn't do to give her anything so mundane that it could be bought. I decided that, for the present to have true value, it must be priceless. In order for the present to have real worth, it must be unique. Something that no-one else could possibly give her. Something that only I could give her; of all the people in the world, rich, poor, old, young; of all the people who ever existed and all those who have yet to be born. Something only I could give her. Something unique. Something beyond value.
I followed such logic and found it to be good.
So I gave her blood.
Being rather fond of the dramatic, I made quite a ritual out of it. The presentation, I decided, was as important as the content. I bought a polished wooden box with brass fittings. A length of velvet. A delicate and ornate bottle of perfume which was hand-made in Egypt. I emptied the bottle of perfume into the box so as to give it a permanent scent. I lined the box with the velvet. I dimmed the lights. I took a sharp knife and made a small incision on my right thumb. Then I drip, drip, dripped my blood into the empty perfume bottle until it was full again.
Bottle sealed shut, wrapped in velvet, locked in wooden box.
She arrived home from Queensland. I gave it to her. She loved it. She still has it. Even though our relationship fell apart and I kicked her out of the flat. She still has it.
And I still have the scar on my thumb.
The End.
Now, I'm not big on self-mutilation. I have no tattoos, piercings or any other form of "body art". When I think about how I cut myself back then, I marvel at the depth of feeling I must have had. When I think of the knife, a sharp instrument, drawn willingly and with force across my bare skin, suppressing my natural instinct to draw away from the danger, forcing the blade into my skin so that I could feel it cutting flesh, overriding the very survival instinct that has safeguarded my existence all these years, letting the knife, the danger, have its day, offering myself to it, allowing it to bite into my willing body, just this once, just this once.
I won't go so far as to say that I did it purely out of love. I'm not that naive. But there was something in me then that overpowered even my most basic instincts. Some combination of emotions that convinced me to reverse over twenty years of learning. "It's sharp. Don't touch." Twenty years of keeping myself alive by being aware of and treating with respect such objects as knives. "Always hold them by the handle." "Never point them at another person." "Be very careful when using them." After twenty years of parental, societal and personal reinforcement of said practices... I did the opposite.
I held it by the blade. I pointed it at myself. And I was definitely not careful when using it.
andrew scott