Before We Move On…
I’m going to include one more entry from Omen, for now. It was a life he had for most of the 20th century as an actress.
While Omen seemed to have no issues telling others he was DaVinci, he never really mentioned the name of this one openly. So, in light of that, neither will I. And in any case, it would shatter many illusions if I did, I’m sure.
The clues are there for those who know what to look for. If you work it out, kudos to you.
Enjoy.
The Silent Treatment
My foremost self was a film actress. I grew up in the performance business and took to it quite well because I considered it an opportunity to perfect my slightly off kilter human performances, and I quite liked the novel idea of behaving as a human who is acting. It was not something I had done before outside of a live theater. A long ways back in what was called, “The Orient;” and men dressed provocatively as women on stage…. Anyhow, getting off track already. My acting career began on stage with my elder sister, as children, in order to fund my mother at the time; as we were quite broke and father walked out very early on, then I became involved with silent film from the moment it became a “thing,” and that part of my career lasted a very long while.
During the silent film “era,” I was quite enamored with a particular director and I shared a lot of who I actually am/was with him (without the word demon mentioned, as I thought it was hilarious to fake being Christian at the time, just to piss certain individuals off…and that would have ruined the fun.) We teamed up for a good two decades or so, and every film we created were actually role-plays on both my past experiences, and his somewhat lewd and twisted creations lightly veiled in satire and drama. It was all like our own little secret game of who could stay as true to reality as we could, while “hamming it up,” as you would say, or elaborating it theatrically for the viewers. We were like gods on the set and it was thrilling.
Having said all of that, I never married or had children (in fact I cannot procreate outside a ritualistic setting most times), because I was so immersed in this “game” and the acting. I made it quite clear to anyone that asked that I was either going to be a woman of the home, or a woman with a career, and that “god” (which I used as a sneaky way of saying me) would be the only one to know for sure. Of course, I made a show of choosing career over “living” because the media loved the idea of such a sacrifice for one’s passion. In reality it was a great scapegoat for being an absolute whore, as everyone was so focused on how innocent and dedicated to my working life I was that they forgot to look under the bed sheets, so to speak.
Anyhow, now I am just boasting. See, this is what happens when you ask about the past, Gary. But, I’ll carry on.
When silent film went belly up overnight to films with sound in them; I tried to cling to my older genre because, believe it or not, I am not so good at adapting after so long. Keeping with the times has been lost on me for quite some time. But I did try, I could sing and make pretty mannerisms with my hands and I mediated my style to suit speech, but my acting fell short by my own standards. Everyone loved it but I felt hollow inside. My passion was dying and soon enough “my” director died of a brain aneurysm in his hotel room soon after. The game was over.
I remember thinking to myself, “What in God’s name am I to do now?,” and being both drunk and cynical. I fell back on my skill with writing and wrote a book. I cared for young nieces and I garnered an extensive collection of tea’s… Which I must say has not lessened over time despite my changing bodies. I went to interviews regarding my former glory as an actress (often at the nagging of old work buddies or my sister who had become quite well known herself) and I became more and more pissed off with the changes rendered to the world of “film.”
Sometime after that, I noticed I was not as sharp as I once was, or at least my body wasn’t. It didn’t connect to me mentally, half the time, and I realized belatedly that I was going senile. I would function fine for extended periods of time then have some huge lapse in recall, or be unable to pass away smaller and more obvious lapses in memory. I even forgot where I lived once, I simply went to a bar instead, ordered a scotch (which I never usually did) and then drank until I was separated from the body to somehow remember clearly and relay it. Sometime after that incident my body was degrading to age; I ate less, I smelled worse, and my voice became so raspy and weak that I could not even sing (which I had enjoyed doing until that point).
I kept my attitude or general persona despite it all, but inside I was tired and dissatisfied with the current circumstance. I had money, I had people who loved me apparently, family, and I had the respect of fans…. But really I had nothing. Acting was my life now, and not the good kind of acting.
I missed my director terribly though I never sought him out after his death. I did not want to admit that he had been important to me, that I had relied on him perhaps more than I intended, and that I had nothing to fall back on once he was gone. I was not depressed though…. Just listless and painfully aware of my human puppet’s faults. I rarely have ever gotten a chance to grow old, but this time I did.
Being as fed up as I was, I had grown weaker than usual, not in body but in spirit, as well… My lack of strong contact with the body took its toll, and so the body died in my sleep (or so I assume). I was in my late 90’s. The last things I remember are that I had a music box sitting on the shelf that I put on to drown out the noise of the shops downstairs (of course I lived above a coffee shop) and this was just the usual routine. By then I was taking many naps just so that I could go and recharge my energy without the body sapping it out of me all over again. I remember I thought to myself that I felt a bit more spaced out than usual, everything was softer and fuzzier even though I had yet to “go out,” and detach from the body. In a way it lulled me and calmed me on all levels. I was finally slowing down for some reason.
I thought, slightly astonished, that this was surely the deepest sleep this body has slipped into for a long time and that it was wonderful. I could think clearly, it didn’t seem to be in the way of my own functioning anymore. I felt unburdened.
In hindsight, I suppose in a way the body was letting go of me and those moments of detachment and distance are quite rare for me, so they left an impact on me.
Overall, dying of old age was a great relief….and I definitely never wish to do so again.