The Invisible Man, New Murderesses, Chicken Spirits, Baby Blue
Ever since my dad’s funeral, which was last month, or really I guess the day my dad died- maybe even before, I started wondering where his spirit was/is/could be. All the places it could be at once? Or nowhere? Somewhere else? When I sit with this thought for longer than is comfortable the idea of “location” inverts, and inverts back again, as something else.
Amanda Linette Meder’s article: The Gift of Presence: How to Sense A Deceased Loved One When They Visit instructs:
“Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing in your kitchen with your back turned to the open doorway behind you. Just take a moment to imagine this scene. Next, imagine that your deceased loved one has just stepped in behind you.
What does your loved one feel like to you?
What did they feel like when they were alive when you were with them?
What does it feel like with them there?
If you can’t think of a good description with words- it doesn’t matter- so long as you can feel it.
If they were alive right now, you would know if the person who entered the room was your husband, dog, 5-yr old daughter, or brother. You would know. You would be able to feel their energy and sense who it was.”
It’s nice to think that: “You would know.” I think of how it is often said that once someone dies, their spirit spreads. Images of the father from the movie Interstellar behind the bookshelf. Hilton Als writes of his mother, “(I was so lonely knowing her alive; now that she is not alive, she is everywhere, like words.)” Buttery spirit on spongey bread planes, dripping down, ectoplasm, or something more ball- like, orbs. Other dimensions, simulations, black holes, the only thing that seems certain is multiples. There are times in which my dad’s everywherness is more appropriate or convenient, like when I am not watching porn. I asked my 16 year old sister about this one night, if she feels him, her response resembled mine which ensures me that this is most definitely woven into church thinking. “Yeah, but like sometimes it’s kind of awkward for him to be here.” I tell my friend that she feels my dad too, “ Yeah, that’s a real patriarch moment.”, he responds.
Sometimes I wish that I had made a pact with my dad to devise a sort of test, like that of the chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier made with an assistant (fellow investigator, soulmate?), to see how many times his eyes blinked once he was decapitated. 13, but no one really knows. I heard the story on Animal Planet when I was nine. Or that of the neighbor friends in the movie Paddleton:
“I don’t believe… but if theres an after situation… you know… and I could somehow contact you… you know, like the woman in the hotel. She hangs out with her husband you know…”
“Thats just in movies and stuff right?”
“But on the .001 chance… would you want me to… contact you?”
“This is a tough one for me. I don’t know”
“I could send you a signal.”
“Yeah.”
“You know?… Push the water glass a little bit or… leave you a note in the foggy mirror…”
“ No. No, don’t do that. No, no. Do not do that. Nothing sudden or, you know… Nothing at midnight.”
“Yeah.”
A preface of skepticism is always helpful to double down the impact of something with the potential to be observed as naive or metaphysical.
*The Invisible Man and You spoilers*
I am glad that the invisible man was not a spirit, and was indeed an invisible man. All of the structuring of another haunting where the hauntee is plunged into a situation of agonizing non believing for 3/4, with the 1/4 being the gratification of knowing that the events were in fact located in the linear physical continuum, and because of this they must be vanquished. Indeed, revenge is taken satisfyingly by the lead role, where she slits her ex lover’s neck, playing the part of the invisible man momentarily before returning on screen visible, to be seen on the security cameras, fake crying until she backs out of view and her tears immediately and pleasurably transform into a blank gaze, a creep smile.
Another moment where a woman’s murdering is still semi-surprising.
The second season of the show You coincides with this arising, an unfamiliar (to me) archetype: the woman who is unsteady, and a highly capable murderer. I am interested in categorizations of killer falling down, less idealization of sociopath, high capability, secret agent super spy sexy excellent clown artist, more discussion of circumstance, of listening, of play.
And then, thinking about my dad and spirit locations, signs, I walk to my refrigerator and see my rotisserie chicken. But where did you go to? I pull off some of her flesh and put it in my mouth, a turning of sensation. My neighbor tells me that when he took the guts out of a chicken he was going to cook, the organs were so frozen that they were each their own individual little parts with pinkish red slushy around. “Like toys”, he says. I chew and imagine all of the hundreds of millions of chicken spirits floating into the sky, more like high speed rocketing up into the sky. I think of Jeffrey Vallance and Blinky, The Friendly Hen. Blinky had a powder blue coffin, just like my dad.
***
References:
The Gift of Presence: How to Sense A Deceased Loved One When They Visit, Amanda Linette Meder
Interstellar- movie
The Women, Hilton Als
Some Experiments with Severed Heads, Mike Dash
Paddleton- my favorite movie
The Invisible Man- movie (2020 version)
You- T.V. show
Luke, my neighbor
Jeffrey Valance’s work with Blinky, The Friendly Hen
