Tortoise & Hair
you disrobe, exposing yourself to strange men and women.
we fix eyes on your air-conditioned flesh, staring
until you become colour and curves
we raise graylead tips to measure ratios,
each of us eclipsing a single pupil,
as we translate image into proportion.
the soft-gravel sound of pencil and charcoal, erupting,
as preliminary sketchings form on surrounding cavases
and I continue to contemplate form.
a gallery of mediocre works-in-progress floating in my periphery
serve as a welcome distraction from the white-space
and a timely reminder of what not to do.
I compare my fellow students with my future self,
idly littering pencil shavings onto the floor
as I imagine myself successful.
replicating the contours of your naked body internally,
by translating ratio back into form,
I pre-sketch.
Shapes and colours emerge, a safe distance from ridicule,
before being discarded and promptly replaced
with marginal improvements.
Soon, my canvas – although still blank – is more accomplished
than the combined scribblings of my entire class.
because, unlike them, I am yet to err.
I don’t subscribe to the practice-makes-perfect philosophy:
time doesn’t reward failure, as long as it is persistant;
success is not measured in quantities of bad work.
The razor scrapes across metal,
indicating that the pencil
is now an eraser.
Nausea creeps in from the shadows, like cockroaches after midnight,
as my focus shifts to the little pink eraser between my fingers,
and the pile of HB woodchips on the floor.
The once-uniform shape of my – now – ex-pencil
deconstructed, until only chaos and meaninglessness remain.
overlapping curves and colours devoid of aesthetic value, symbolizing nothing.
Your naked body disappears into the pencil shavings,
and all of my carefully calculated proportions are erased,
leaving nothing but a pink rubber nub and a small stack of wood chips beside my shoe.
An unwanted realization is lingering just beyond my consciousness
threatening to emerge from beneath the pencil shavings
and expose itself.
I look at you, again, but I can’t see through you anymore:
there is no transformation from three-dimensional object
to two dimensional shapes.
Unable to translate image into proportion, and back again,
my eyes wander across your body,
settling between your legs.
The subtle variation of skin tones along the shaft
and the juxtaposition of vulnerability with power
ensure that your genitals are worthy of their own canvas.
The scribbling sounds of grinding charcoal sticks doesn’t phase me.
glancing around the room, at the other portraits,
I am re-assured of my potential.
Having translated your cock and balls into their relative proportions,
my mind proceeds to race through a series of imperfect pre-sketches,
before finally settling on the perfect image.
Male genitalia, when reduced to shape and observed out of context,
bears an uncanny resemblance to the facial features of a salt-water tortoise.
whether anyone has ever noticed, and capitalized on, this – however – was uncertain.
Tilting my easel away from spying eyes, I begin scribbling furiously,
and with every stroke, the portrait continued to improve
until, after only a minute or two, it is complete.
one of my fellow students, creeps up on me, unnoticed, motioning
towards the bush of curly hair positioned on top of the reptile’s head,
“Is that a tortoise, wearing a toupe?”
“No,” I chuckle. “It’s pubic hair.”
upon hearing this, the student – Chloe – leans in.
so close, that her nose almost touches charcoal.
Meanwhile I glance over at what she’s produced,
unsurprised to find her easel , unnocupied, on the other side of the room,
and, balancing on top of it, an indecipherable mess of black lines and smudges.
“I get it,” she says. “It’s a penis, right?”
She doesn’t get it, though. Because it’s not just a penis,
it’s also a post-pubescent snub-nosed Atlantic snapping-tortoise.
Unfortunately for them, some people can’t see beyond surfaces.
as far as they’re concerned, cigars will never be anything but cigars
and reptiles are incapable of co-existing in space-time with human genitalia.
“Yes,” I say, rolling my eyes. “That’s right. It’s a penis.”
she tries to force a smile, instead producing an awkward expression
somehow less convincing than her failed attempts to capture the human form.
“I like yours,” I mumble,
pointing over her shoulder
before adding, “What is it, though?”
Her eyelids, painted thick with mascara, flutter a bit.
she takes a deep thoughtful breath, before replying,
“I was trying to, you know, um, capture the passion.”
You, the fat middle-aged man posing stark-naked
on the make-shift stage in the centre of the room,
raise your leg and let out a series of high pitched farts.
Chloe, meanwhile, continues,
“I wanted to put his soul on canvas.
Rather than just – like – his physical self, or whatever.”
Having completed your gaseous symphony, you lower your leg, back into original position,
and – like nuclear fallout poisoning the earth – the odour-of-obesity drifts towards us.
the smell of bad food, improperly digested and left to rot in your bowels.
My watering eyes shift from Chloe’s canvas to you, her muse, and back again.
the air thick with rancid shit, as I compare subject and portrait.
I am, in the end, unable to deny her accomplishment.
Her scribblings have no aesthetic value,
but neither do you,
so, it’s perfect.
I look down at the wood chips by my shoe, then up at my canvas,
and that impending truth I’ve been avoiding catches up with me.
I allow it – the formerly unwanted realization – to wash over me.
“You’ve beaten me,” I say to her,
gathering pencils together,
and unscrewing the easel.
With my pockets full of pencils
and the tortoise secured under my arm,
I walk towards the exit, past the flatulating model.
“Wow, a tortoise,” you say, smiling inanely.
“You have real talent, you know that kid?”
you fart regularly while speaking.
Opening the door wide, I turn back to face you,
and, holding the canvas out in front of me, I let out a deep sigh,
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s a tortoise. A tortoise, wearing a toupee.”
“Oh,” you say,
scratching contemplatively,
“I thought it was pubic hair.”
A small group of teenage girls, in school uniforms, walk past the door
their eyes, connecting briefly with your naked body.
“Aw,” one of them says. “He’s cute. What’s his name?”
Not the reaction I expected.
In fact, it’s downright confusing.
I don’t know what to say.
“Terry,” you say, feeding
lettuce to your penis.
"His name is Terry."
Skipping past me and into the centre of the studio,
the girls proceed to gather around the stage.
“I’ve never seen one this big.”
My brain has well and truly left the building.
Pencil shavings, apparently, are breeding grounds for insanity.
Or, maybe it’s the cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs I had for breakfast.
As I let go of the door, and let it swing closed behind me,
one of the schoolgirls reaches out to touch Terry.
“Don’t worry,” you say. “He doesn’t bite.”
And – that’s it – I’m left standing there,
holding a portrait of Terry.
Terry, the Tortoise.
