Celestial Inventories by Steve Rasnic Tem Read Free Book Online

reversed, scars are invariably left behind. As far as mental scars, well, how can I even answer that?”
    “They’re saying I’ve retired,” Jerome said, still walking, now swinging his arms in agitation, now scratching at visible sores. He did not look at Mickey directly. “This is some sort of documentary retrospective on my work. They say no one has seen me in months.”
    “. . . constant treatment for tissue repair and scar removal. It leaves a mottled, textured appearance to my skin (He shows the camera his arm.) Mickey says it’s like touching an enlarged fingerprint: you find yourself trying to identify and interpret the ridges and whorls. Mickey? He’s my assistant, no, more than that: my partner.”
    “I heard about the incident at the hospital,” Mickey said. “That must have been awful. Those blankets . . .” He paused. “Well those blankets
never
fail.”
    Jerome stared at him as if unsure who he was.
    “. . . molecular computers and various antibiotic vehicles handling most of the repairs. But their work is never one hundred percent complete.”
    “It really wasn’t that bad,” Jerome finally replied. “I mean, that’s the way it used to be, right?”

    “Relics and ruins get left behind: a discolouration in the skin, a twist in the joint, an internal pattern which persists. I
am
a relic and a ruin. I believe we all are.”
    “It used to be injury, pain, and dying, right? Used to be it was always messy.”
    “Mickey says that one of these relics is going to kill me eventually, and Mickey is probably right, but
so what?”
    “That’s what my art’s about, reminding people of all that.”
    “But so what?”
    Mickey stopped and looked at him. “That’s really what you think?”
    “Well, of course. That’s why the people come.”
    “It’s just the human condition.”
    “Oh, Jerome. They already know about the likelihood of injury, of death. All that mess. But you still keep it tidy for them. Watching you is like looking at a painting or watching one of those old films. You keep the mess out of their living rooms.”
    “I should know. I’ve been doing this,
we’ve
been doing this, such a long time.”
    “No one cares, Jerome. No one even remembers. You ask those Filthies kids, or those Job characters, why those people used to die, why it happened, what it meant, especially what it means about them and being human, they’re not going to know. They’re just going to point to that picture of you on their cloaks, and sound out whatever slogan they have written there. That’s all they know how to do.”
    Mickey thought Jerome might have stopped after that, but he was wrong.
    ----
    From
The Disease Artist: A Performance Chronicle:
    The only film remaining of The Disease Artist’s last performance is of rather poor quality, shaky and a bit out-of-focus, obviously taken with an antique film camera. Under normal circumstances this film would have been enhanced and brought up to contemporary standards, but a clause in the will of the original owner, The Disease Artist’s long time partner Mr. Mickey Johnson, forbids any form of alteration and/or augmentation. Few first-hand accounts of this performance have survived, most of those merely relating that The Disease Artist appeared to be in a state of advanced mental deterioration due to his disease, and babbled incoherently throughout the final days of the performance on any and all subjects which passed at random through his mind. This lack of specifics as to his final commentaries is particularly troubling in that the sound was turned off for most of Mr. Johnson’s less-than-adequate filmed record.
    Also puzzling is the choice of The Disease Artist’s final ailment 128 : a rather undramatic assemblage of symptoms—weight loss, a barely visible swelling of the lymph glands, dry cough, fatigue and fever—symptoms indicative of a number of conditions. Only the white blemishes on the tongue, the red, brown, and purple marks on