A52
Collective Memory
Excerpt from novel: A longitudinal case study into motherlessness.

watching civilians

connalie braddart is a pretty good one to watch
just for the sheer sense of wonder
at how anyone could be so unaware of anyone but themselves.
sometimes she’ll talk at the camera for an hour about her day:
she complains though about her boss and her car making some noise
and asks people to pray for her cat with cancer.
and then you’ll watch her sit there reading people’s Public Opinions about her
for another forty-five minutes
some calling her a bitch
or saying things’ll get better
or how attractive she is
or whatever.
she’ll read them all aloud, then look at the camera and reply to that person,
so it feels a little interactive.
i commented once,
“my thoughts and prayers go out to your cat!”
but she scrolled past it and didn’t read it aloud and thank me or anything.
i felt stupid about that so i never tried it again.
after that she usually texts her boyfriend pictures and stuff.
sometimes her boyfriend comes over,
grayg’s his name,
and she’ll complain to grayg and us all about her day,
all the same goddamn stuff that she already told the camera
with the same phrases and inflections,
like she’d been rehearsing it or something.
then he holds her and tells her it’ll be ok
and that her boss is a bitch
and that the cat chemo is going well,
and he holds her while she cries.
sometimes they’ll fuck in the bathroom,
but it seems like they’re just doing that for the camera.
usually, though, they just fuck in bed like everyone else.

marion and rickard are good for a slow watch.
if you want some action you could watch the hansons or peger and kit paleesso —
they’re always getting into fights —
but marion and rickard just sort of sit around.
they talk a lot, and sometimes they just
read books at opposite ends of the couch.
they’re good to have on in the background
because nothing ever really happens with them.
marion works from home and
rickard is usually gone in the day and back in the evening.
sometimes they watch tv,
usually they like watching ruthie and ben’s stream.
once i watched them watching themselves.
they ended up jerking off
so i changed to saul branch
because i had been trying not to jerk off so much.
eventually, though, i went back to watching them
and then started
jerking off watching them
jerking off watching themselves
jerking off.
but aside from that, marion and rickard are generally
a pretty slow watch.

Samson Manoah