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The Performance
It was Wednesday afternoon at the height of June, and the Detroit Museum of Modern Art was exactly as crowded as Jeffrey expected.
Which is to say, it was nearly deserted. Aside from his fellow classmates wandering through the bright, antiseptic galleries, their street shoes whispering with scuffs on the faux marble floor, there was barely another soul to be seen. The artwork hanging on the walls significantly outnumbered the audience. Security cameras perched in the ceiling corners like spiders spied down on solitude.
He was supposed to be studying the art. Contemplating it. Learning from it. Appreciating it, even. Mostly, though, he felt regret for coming on this field trip.
“Hey!” Michael’s voice cut through the silence and snapped him to attention. “Found another one.”
Thank Christ. Jeff abandoned the orange-and-red splotch-work disaster masquerading as a painting and ambled over to Mike, his hands shoved in his jean pockets for protection against the museum’s aggressive air conditioning. His friend, shorter by inches, lighter in skin and darker in hair, lounged beside a black stone sculpture sitting on a waist-high concrete plinth.
Jeff stopped a few feet short and leaned forward to inspect the piece. It was in the style of a Rodin, black as jet, polished but crude. The nude sculpture hunched over, like a woman sitting on the ledge of a building and contemplating the long drop below. An undifferentiated mass of solid hair flowed over her shoulders, somehow conveying a sense of stringy uncleanliness despite its rough shape. The face was little more than gestures, but sad all the same.
Jeff would write that in his notes for their seminar tomorrow with Professor Mishima. For now, though, his eyes drifted lower and lingered on the sculpture’s chest. Low, rounded, pyramidal breasts pointed down and out. Her legs were closed tight and revealed nothing.
“I dunno, man,” he said. “I don’t think this counts.”
“Sure it does,” Mike said. His voice lowered to a rough whisper now that they were close. “She’s totally naked.”
“Yeah, like a Barbie Doll.”
“No dude, look.” Mike crouched and leaned forward, trespassing into the concave formed by the hunched figure like a ringmaster placing his head in a lion’s mouth. “Look at the tips.”
Jeff glanced around the rest of the gallery before following. They were the only two in this room, though he could hear mumbled conversations down the hall. Satisfied that they were alone, he knelt to peer at the sculpture’s chest.
There was a bit more detail, seen from up close, that had eluded him before. The dark rock hid it well, but the artist’s chisel had carved faint circles around the tips of the sculpture’s breasts and left a single deeper score in their peaks. It was enough, he supposed, to qualify as nipples.
“Okay, yeah, I guess,” he said and stood, brushing his knees off. “Kinda weak, though.”
Mike reached out to lightly touch the sculpture’s chest with his fingertips, then stood as well. “Better than nothing. That’s, what, five now?”
“Call it four-and-a-half.” Since entering the museum an hour before,they had been on a mission to seek and catalogue every bit of nudity they could find. Their efforts were lackluster so far – aside from one graphic image of a male model they had alternately stared at and pretended to ignore, there was nothing in the gallery halls that couldn’t be found in the pages of a National Geographic issue on the tribes of the Amazon. This black sculpture, with its half-imaginary breasts, was an exclamation point on their failure.
The next hall was as bland as the last, though they spent several minutes debating a Cubist portrait titled Nude No. 5, that, as far as either of them could tell, had no nudity whatsoever. It didn’t even have a person that Jeff could see, just blocks and lines and angles.
“It’s like the artist is trolling us,” he mumbled. Mike snorted, and they moved on.
“When the professor said we had to be mature and serious in here, it kinda got my hopes up,” Mike said an hour later.
They’d found the industrial art gallery, which consisted of discarded metal – railroad spikes, tin cans, miles of copper wire, enough rust flakes to fill a bathtub – welded and piercing and wrapping each other in a room-length sculpture. A junkyard with white walls and bright lights. It filled his mouth with the taste of pennies.
“Maybe he wanted more people to sign up?” Jeff offered. “Like at a carnival they have signs telling you how crazy all the stuff inside is, and only people with strong constitutions are allowed in.”
“Well, it’s going on my course critique. ‘Lied about how much nudity the museum would have.’”
“I’m sure they’ll take that seriously.” Jeff glanced at his watch – only a quarter past two. “We’ve got, uh... Almost two more hours.”
“Awesome.” Mike leaned back in a stretch, his spine popping. “Wanna hit the Starbucks across the street? They prolly have wifi.”
“Sounds good. One more room of this place and I’ll die of boredom.”
That said, the exit was several rooms away. They moved through narrow corridors lined with 60s-style comic art, a completely empty room with a detailed mural of an enormous eyeball staring down from the ceiling, and others that passed so quickly out of recollection they may as well not have existed at all.
Finally, they came to the last gallery, a wide room the size of a tennis court with glass walls looking out on a leafy boulevard. Through them, past the exit-only doors, a Starbucks tempted all comers with its bright green corporate welcome. A bored-looking cop leaned on the hood of his cruiser, watching pedestrians stream by the crosswalk.
Neither of them noticed. Instead they stopped just a few feet inside the hall, and stared.
Finally, Mike spoke. “What the fuck?”
No artwork hung from any of the walls. The wide room was bare and empty, like a showroom waiting to be filled, except for a single display in the center. A huge metal cage, easily ten feet high and just as wide, dominated the space. A jail cell that had somehow escaped its jail. A few feet outside the bars stood stanchions connected by nylon webbing, forming an infinitely less substantial barrier than the prison they protected.
Seated inside, alone on a simple wood stool, was a wisp of a woman. She was dressed modestly, or perhaps just warmly, with a long-sleeved dark shirt and a skirt that fell to her feet. A black scarf concealed her hair. At her feet, tucked behind the stool, were a simple gym bag and a briefcase.
She must’ve heard them, because her head turned a few inches. But otherwise she betrayed no reaction, her hands still folded primly on her lap. The skin of her face and hands was dark, tanned, or perhaps she hailed from some less pale part of the globe than Detroit. Mid-twenties, Jeff guessed, just a few years older than him. If they’d met at a bar, he might have worked up the courage to ask for her phone number.
“Is this an exhibit?” Mike asked. His voice was little more than a whisper, as though they were intruding on someone’s stage. “Are we allowed in here?”
“I didn’t see any signs.” Jeff spun in place to make sure. There was nothing separating this room from the rest of the museum but the open doors along each wall. “I think we’re fine.”
They walked toward the cage and stopped just shy of the stanchions protecting it. A nylon belt girdled the cage, looking as thin and fragile as a spider web beside the metal bars.
Whoever crafted the cage took their job seriously. This was not some state fair construct of hollow aluminum poles propped up on metal panels – this was a cage, with solid iron or steel bars fastened to the floor with heavy-duty masonry bolts. Octagonal metal rods spaced a few inches apart filled out the sides, leaving space for a single door fastened with the largest padlock Jeff had ever seen.
Whoever this woman was, she was staying in there for a while. Although the cage was open-topped, coils of wickedly barbed concertina wire hung like wreaths all around it.
“Amira Menaged,” Mike said. He stood by a small plastic placard on its own stanchion, positioned so the reader was standing in front of the caged woman. “I think that’s her name.”
Jeff sidled over, careful not to touch the nylon rope barrier. The woman’s eyes locked onto him as he approached the placard. They stared at each other for a moment, and he quickly looked down at the sign.
“Ah.” Jeff looked up again at the concertina wire circling the cage. “I get it. It’s like a mini-refugee camp.”
“So she just sits there?”
“Yeah.” Jeff looked down at the card, reading the last line again. “Or, I guess she does whatever we tell her to do, too.”
“Like, anything?”
“Dude, I’m just reading what the card says.”
“Yeah, okay.” Mike licked his lips. “Hey, uh, Amira?”
The woman’s dark eyes suddenly leapt to Michael, and he took a half-step back. Her gaze was full of silence and intent, and Jeff found himself breathing easier not to be its target.
Mike rallied and plowed forward. “Amira. That’s your name, right?”
No response. She stared at him, barely blinking.
“You have to tell her to do something, man,” Jeff whispered.
“Oh, yeah.” Mike cleared his throat. “Tell us your name.”
Amira smiled and shook her head ever so slightly. One hand came up and drew her fingers across her lips.
“No talking, maybe?” Jeff said. “Amira, stand up.”
That worked. The woman leaned forward and stood. She was short, the top of her head barely reaching Jeff’s chin, but she still stared into his eyes as though they were the same height.
Mike grinned. “There we go. Amira, sit down.”
She complied without hesitation, reaching back to gather her skirt and pull it tight against the back of her legs before sitting down on the stool.
“Stand up,” Jeff said.
“Sit down,” Mike shot back, still smiling. Amira stopped halfway through the motion of standing and sank back onto the stool.
Jeff snorted. “Gonna give her a thigh workout, huh? Amira, stand up.”
“Okay, this is pretty neat,” Mike said. He took a step back, arms folded across his chest, and gazed up at the entirety of the cage. “Is it, you know, really art, though?”
“I did theater in high school. This is just like that. So, yeah, art. Amira, stand on one leg.”
The woman complied. She wobbled a bit, her arms extending from her sides for balance, but she managed to hold the pose.
“Cool.” Mike fished his phone out of his pocket. “Hey, take a picture of me next to her?”
“Yeah, sure.” He took the phone and was playing with the controls when he saw Amira wobble again. “Uh, switch legs, Amira.”
“Are you talking to her?” A new voice intruded. Jeff turned to see their classmate Rachel standing a safe distance away. She frowned up at the concertina wire, squinted at the woman in the cage, and took a step closer to him.
“Yeah, it’s a performance art piece.” Jeff figured out the phone’s camera app and snapped a picture of Mike and the cage. “It’s like a mini-refugee camp. And she does whatever you say, for some reason.”
“Why?” Rachel asked. She was already moving to the placard, and scanned it silently, her eyes occasionally darting up at Amira.
“Something about redoing an old performance,” Mike said. He took his camera back and swiped across the screen. “Try telling her to do something.”
Rachel was slow to respond. She scanned the placard again, a little frown on her lips. When she looked up at the cage, her eyes had narrowed, and Jeff could see her nostrils flaring in irritation.
“You’re Muslim, right?” she asked. “You're a long way from home. Take off your headscarf.”
For the first time, Amira paused before reacting. She wavered and put her leg down, then slowly reached up with both hands to pull the scarf back from her temples. Black, shoulder-length hair spilled out from it, and she gave her head a little shake to settle it down. The scarf she bundled up and set on the gym bag behind her before returning to a standing position. Her dark eyes locked on Rachel’s.
“Whoa.” Jeff stepped up to the barrier to get a better look. “Can she do that?”
“Of course she can.” The faint hint of a sneer carried in Rachel’s voice. “No one needs to wear a headscarf, they just do it to flaunt their religion.”
Amira looked like she wanted to respond to that, but whatever unwritten rule that compelled her to silence prevailed. Rachel waited, her mouth open just a hair, ready to retort, but when nothing came she shook her head and turned.
“Whatever, have fun with her.” She walked away.
“Huh.” Mike stared after her, then shrugged. “Guess she doesn’t like refugees. Anyway, wanna get that Starbucks?”
He did want Starbucks, but they weren’t done here, yet. Jeff stared at the crumpled headscarf, then at Amira. His lips suddenly felt dry, and he licked them before looking around the amphitheater. It was still just the three of them. When he turned back to Amira, she was watching him, and he saw the muscles in her jaw tighten beneath her skin.
Yeah, he could do this. There was no one to stop him.
“Amira.” His voice caught, and he paused to clear his throat. “Amira, take off your shirt.”
“Whoa! Dude, she’s not gonna do…” Mike’s outburst faded into silence. Jeff barely heard it at all.
Inside the cage, Amira grasped the hem of her dark shirt and pulled it up. There was nothing beneath but a modest sky-blue bra. She struggled with the shirt over her head, having moved with a bit too much urgency, but finally managed to pull it free of her hair. She balled the fabric quickly, almost angrily, and tossed it onto the gym bag with the headscarf.
It was a few seconds before Mike said anything. “Oh shit.”
Oh shit indeed. Jeff tensed, half expecting police or security or his mother to suddenly show up out of nowhere, but the amphitheater remained as deserted as before. “Yeah. See? Art.”
“Right.” Mike stepped up beside him. “Hey, you think she’ll, uh… you know?”
“Maybe. Amira, take off your, uh, thing. The, uh, bra.”
The corner of her mouth raised in what might have been a smile. Just as quickly it was gone, and she reached behind her back. The straps suddenly came loose, and the bra’s cups fell away. She gathered the garment and folded it with much more care than the shirt, and set it beside her discarded shirt. When she turned back, her arms were held rigidly at her side, and she thrust her chest out at them. Defiantly, he thought, for all that she was half naked.
Something like a giggle worked up Jeff’s throat. Twenty minutes ago they’d been bored out of their minds, baffled by crude, pretentious paintings and pointless sculptures. Now he was staring at a woman’s tits – and a nice set of tits, the size of apples, tipped with dark areola that faded at the margins into her mocha skin. A swell of energy, of power, filled his chest. He did this; he made her disrobe.
Beside him, Mike burst out laughing. “Shit! She did it, man!” He stared at her and fumbled with his phone again. He nearly dropped it trying to bring up the camera app without peeling his eyes from her.
“Awesome. This is awesome.” Some movement caught Jeff’s eye, and he glanced over to see two more patrons standing in the entryway of the amphitheater. They pointed at the cage and the woman inside, surprise clear on their faces. His chest tightened and a cold shock at being discovered rolled up his spine.
But they didn’t move to stop him. And why would they? This was performance art. The woman, Amira, probably knew she was going to end up like this, which was why she brought the gym bag. Their professor’s warning to act mature suddenly seemed more considered.
Mike finally recovered enough to use his phone. The sound of a fake shutter clicking filled the silence.
“Awesome,” Mike echoed. He lowered the phone and grinned. “Bet she’ll take the rest off?”
As it turned out, she would. More patrons filtered in, populating the edge of the room as Amira completed her divestment. When she finished she stood before them, still defiant. The hint of a smile was gone from her lips, though.
Jeff vaguely recalled reading somewhere that Muslims shaved all their body hair. Apparently that wasn’t universally true. Yet another new thing he’d learned today.
“It’s gotta take guts to do this, you know? All to make a point about refugees or something, I guess.” Jeff looked up at the coils of razor wire. They were such an odd, terrible contrast to the fragile, beautiful woman inside the cage, and for a moment some emotion other than giddy excitement penetrated his mind. Something about mercy. His grin relaxed, and he glanced back at Amira. She looked impossibly strong for a person in such a condition, alone except for the scraps of her clothes, a gym bag, and a briefcase.
Briefcase. That seemed a little out of place. He stared at it. “Amira, what’s in the briefcase?”
Nothing. She stared at them in silence. It occurred to him that they would never learn what her voice sounded like.
He tried again. “Amira, open the briefcase and show us its contents.”
That worked. Whatever was inside was light, apparently, because she turned and picked it up without any effort. She set it on the stool, snapped the latches, opened the top, and spun it around to face them.
Jeff blinked. For a long moment his mind simply failed to process what he saw. Beside him, Mike was silent as well, until he finally sucked in a gasp of air.
Every type of needle rested on velvet, glistening silver against rich purple cloth. Long needles, short needles, bevelled syringe needles, acupuncture needles thin as a hair. Sewing needles the size of a pencil. Beside them a row of surgical scalpels lay like soldiers in a rank. Above them all, atop its own cushion in a place of honor, rested a long, single-edged knife with a curved blade.
Behind him, someone gasped. Jeff glanced back to see the crowd had converged and grown to nearly a dozen other patrons. One woman turned at the sight of the needles and walked away. A middle-aged black man in a suit filled her spot, his phone held before him like a talisman, recording.
“Okay.” A sensation like treading endlessly deep water washed over him. He paused to take a breath and let it out slowly. “Amira, close the briefcase and—”
“Wait!” Mike’s voice interrupted before Amira could reach for the case. “Amira, pick up one of the needles.”
“What?” Jeff blurted and turned to him. Inside the cage, Amira plucked a long, slender needle seemingly at random and held it loosely in her fingers. “Dude, what are you doing?”
“It’s cool, just trust me,” Mike said. He was staring at Amira, his eyes wide. “It’s just a performance, you know? Art. It’s probably not even real.”
“It looks real. Really real.”
“Don’t worry. Amira, poke yourself with the needle.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat. She held out her free arm, palm up, and lightly tapped the needle’s point against her wrist. The skin dented, and her body jerked at the sharp touch, but nothing more.
Jeff let out the breath. “Okay, there, see? Come on, let’s let some other people give her orders.”
Mike shook his head. “Harder.”
Again Amira paused. But whatever well of courage she drew from was deeper than Jeff could understand, and she drove the needle down into her arm. Her whole body jerked and she cried out. Her voice was high, and even in that wordless expression Jeff heard the hint of an exotic accent.
She straightened slowly. The needle remained in her arm, sunk at least an inch deep. Blood beaded at the site of the wound and ran down her arm before dripping onto the marble tiles. It painted tiny red flowers at her feet.
“Jesus fuck.” Jeff stepped back and had to close his eyes. A cold sweat broke out along his forehead and back. Someone behind him a woman gasped, and half the crowd pulled away, while the other half crowded forward. Their babbling barely reached him over the buzz in his ears.
“...holy shit that had to…”
“...she on drugs? I bet she’s on…”
“...this legal? This can’t be…”
“...yeah, this is happening right now. I’m at the Detroit Museum of…”
Jeff opened his eyes. The last voice belonged to the black man in the suit. He had his phone up, pointed at the naked woman in the cage, and was narrating what they saw. Probably on Periscope or Facebook.
A hand slapped him on the back. Mike was next to him, grinning like a fool. “Did you see that, man? Did you see that?”
“Yeah, I saw,” Jeff croaked. “Why’d you tell her to do that?”
“Dude, don’t you get it? She brought the needles for this exact reason. The knife too.” He turned back to the cage. “Hey, Amira, pick up the knife.”
A cold fist clenched Jeff’s guts. “No. No, man. Amira, don’t.”
“Amira, pick up the knife. Pick it up. Okay, good.” Mike licked his lips, his eyes fastened on the knife in Amira’s hand. “Cut yourself. Between your breasts.”
That was too much. “Dude, what the fuck are you doing? Do you want her to cut herself?”
“It’s her, man. It’s her. She can stop any time she wants.” Mike raised his voice to be heard over the babble. Others were shouting at her now, trying to give her orders, but Amira’s eyes stayed on Michael and Jeffrey. “Do it, Amira.”
She nodded, her first actual response since they found her, and raised the knife. She placed the tip against the little hollow between her collar bones and pressed. The skin broke easily, and she winced, but she drew the blade down her sternum nevertheless, unzipping the skin beneath the cutting edge. Dark blood welled out, gathered, and dribbled down her fingers and belly and groin.
No. No. This was wrong. Jeff grabbed Mike’s shirt behind his neck, balling the fabric in his fist. “That’s enough. Stop it.”
Mike twisted, smacking Jeff’s arm away with his hand. “Hey, you tell her to stop, then. She chose to come here. I’m just doing what she wants us to do.”
“Fucking hell, man. Amira, put the knife away. And close the damn briefcase.”
She did as he asked. Mike grumbled, but didn’t try to stop her. They watched as she set the knife back on its velvet cushion and started to close the case.
“Wait.” It was the black man, filming beside them. “There’s something in the lid.”
He was right – the briefcase’s velvet lid did indeed have its own panel. A simple rotating latch held the compartment closed. A space for a phone or an iPad or something delicate that needed an extra layer of protection. It was probably empty.
Mike pointed at the lid. “Amira, open that up.”
She did with a simple twist of her fingers. With the lid still raised, the panel simply fell away, swinging to down cover the knives and needles.
Inside the new space, nestled in a specially cut foam pad, was a gleaming short-nosed revolver. Black, textured rubber covered the grip for better handling. Gunsmoke residue darkened the end of the barrel, turning the chrome a sickly gray.
Jeff blinked dumbly. It was all he could do. Except for the occasional cop, he’d never even seen a gun, much less in the open like this. Was that even legal? Detroit was supposed to have tough laws on handguns, even on private property, and…
“Amira, pick up the gun,” he heard Michael say.
There was a rush, a babble punctuated by shrieks, and suddenly the crowd was gone. He glanced around to see them retreat to the open doors, or circle around behind the cage. Only he and Michael and the black man recording with the phone remained.
“Amira,” he said. His voice sounded distant and cottony in his ears. “Amira, is that loaded?”
No answer. She stood as before, the gun held loosely at her side, waiting.
There was another rush as a man with a sweater vest appeared beside the cage. He had a ring of keys in his hands, and fumbled with the lock. A few paces behind him a pair of security guards, armed only with nightsticks, stared at the gun. One of them whispered something into a radio handset strapped to his shoulder – he probably had a direct line to Detroit's emergency services.
That guy looked important. “Hey,” Jeff tried again. “Is that loaded?”
“She’s not supposed to have a gun.” The man looked up at the naked woman, then back down at the lock. His hands shook as he tried each key in turn. “She said she would only have needles. Amira, listen to me. This performance is cancelled. This wasn't in our agreement!”
Amira watched him fumble with the lock. She didn’t put the gun down, or move at all. Instead she looked back at Michael and Jeffrey. Waiting.
Okay, so that’s how it was. “Amira, put the gun away and put your clothes back on.”
“Don’t.” Mike leaned past the nylon rope, grabbing onto the bars. “Amira, keep the gun.”
“DROP THE GUN! DROP THE GUN NOW!” A new voice, shouting so loud it echoed, jolted them all. Jeff stumbled back and turned to see a City of Detroit police officer at the entrance. He had his own gun drawn, held in both hands, pointed at the cage. Even from a dozen yards away Jeff could see the officer’s wide eyes, white all around, and the glisten of sweat on his forehead.
The remaining crowd scattered. The man with the keys dropped them and backed away, his arms raised.
“Officer, wait!” Jeff stepped back, trying to get out from between them. His feet caught, and he stumbled, landing on his ass. He held his hands up, as though they could ward away bullets. “It’s just an act, officer! It’s a performance!”
Mike still hadn’t moved from the cage. He didn’t even seem aware of the cop. “Amira, hold the gun up.”
Slowly, she lifted the gun, raising the barrel a few inches. Someone behind them screamed.
“Amira, stop! Stop listening to him!” Jeff spun back to the officer, who was sighting down the barrel of his pistol. “Officer, it’s just a prop. It’s not loaded, okay? It’s not loaded—”
“Drop it! Drop it now!” the officer bellowed.
The shouting became a din, every one of them at once. “It’s not loaded!”
“Drop the gun or I will shoot you!”
“Amira,” Mike’s voice, calm, barely audible. “Amira, pull the trigger.”
“No! It’s not loaded! Officer, don’t–”
A tremendous roar deafened him, like thunder detonating just inches away. The marble floor beside him exploded as the bullet struck it, pelting him with sharp fragments of rock and dust. Inside the cage, Amira stumbled. Her hand whipped back under the force of the gun’s recoil. She seemed as surprised by the shot as the rest of them.
The cop recovered first. He crouched, as though trying to hide behind an imaginary wall, then stepped forward. His gun barked three times, barely heard above the ring in Jeff’s ears. The cage bars sparked, and something stung his thigh. Two red spots appeared high on Amira’s chest, and she fell. The look of surprise never left her face.
It’s all an act. It’s just an act. Jeff sat on the floor, half-deaf from the ringing in his ears. He tried to stand and slipped on something. Beneath him, blood smeared in the shape of his boot prints.
The cop walked to the cage, gun trained on the fallen girl. A thin haze of bluish-gray smoke drifted in the spotlights above them.
Jeff felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Mike crouching beside him. He breathed hard, nearly gasping, and his eyes were as wide and wild as any Jeff had ever seen. They shone with a mad, rabid light.
“Dude, did you see that?” he said. “She did it. That was... Oh, shit man...”
It’s just an act. She’s fine. It’s just an act. Jeff turned back to the cage, staring at Amira’s motionless form. He waited for the cop to put his gun away, for Amira to stand, and for everyone to congratulate themselves on a performance well done. An act so perfect it would go down in the history of art.
He waited, and waited. Beside him, Mike began to laugh. It almost sounded like he was crying, too.
It's just an act.
He was still waiting when the ambulance arrived to take him away.
Which is to say, it was nearly deserted. Aside from his fellow classmates wandering through the bright, antiseptic galleries, their street shoes whispering with scuffs on the faux marble floor, there was barely another soul to be seen. The artwork hanging on the walls significantly outnumbered the audience. Security cameras perched in the ceiling corners like spiders spied down on solitude.
He was supposed to be studying the art. Contemplating it. Learning from it. Appreciating it, even. Mostly, though, he felt regret for coming on this field trip.
“Hey!” Michael’s voice cut through the silence and snapped him to attention. “Found another one.”
Thank Christ. Jeff abandoned the orange-and-red splotch-work disaster masquerading as a painting and ambled over to Mike, his hands shoved in his jean pockets for protection against the museum’s aggressive air conditioning. His friend, shorter by inches, lighter in skin and darker in hair, lounged beside a black stone sculpture sitting on a waist-high concrete plinth.
Jeff stopped a few feet short and leaned forward to inspect the piece. It was in the style of a Rodin, black as jet, polished but crude. The nude sculpture hunched over, like a woman sitting on the ledge of a building and contemplating the long drop below. An undifferentiated mass of solid hair flowed over her shoulders, somehow conveying a sense of stringy uncleanliness despite its rough shape. The face was little more than gestures, but sad all the same.
Jeff would write that in his notes for their seminar tomorrow with Professor Mishima. For now, though, his eyes drifted lower and lingered on the sculpture’s chest. Low, rounded, pyramidal breasts pointed down and out. Her legs were closed tight and revealed nothing.
“I dunno, man,” he said. “I don’t think this counts.”
“Sure it does,” Mike said. His voice lowered to a rough whisper now that they were close. “She’s totally naked.”
“Yeah, like a Barbie Doll.”
“No dude, look.” Mike crouched and leaned forward, trespassing into the concave formed by the hunched figure like a ringmaster placing his head in a lion’s mouth. “Look at the tips.”
Jeff glanced around the rest of the gallery before following. They were the only two in this room, though he could hear mumbled conversations down the hall. Satisfied that they were alone, he knelt to peer at the sculpture’s chest.
There was a bit more detail, seen from up close, that had eluded him before. The dark rock hid it well, but the artist’s chisel had carved faint circles around the tips of the sculpture’s breasts and left a single deeper score in their peaks. It was enough, he supposed, to qualify as nipples.
“Okay, yeah, I guess,” he said and stood, brushing his knees off. “Kinda weak, though.”
Mike reached out to lightly touch the sculpture’s chest with his fingertips, then stood as well. “Better than nothing. That’s, what, five now?”
“Call it four-and-a-half.” Since entering the museum an hour before,they had been on a mission to seek and catalogue every bit of nudity they could find. Their efforts were lackluster so far – aside from one graphic image of a male model they had alternately stared at and pretended to ignore, there was nothing in the gallery halls that couldn’t be found in the pages of a National Geographic issue on the tribes of the Amazon. This black sculpture, with its half-imaginary breasts, was an exclamation point on their failure.
The next hall was as bland as the last, though they spent several minutes debating a Cubist portrait titled Nude No. 5, that, as far as either of them could tell, had no nudity whatsoever. It didn’t even have a person that Jeff could see, just blocks and lines and angles.
“It’s like the artist is trolling us,” he mumbled. Mike snorted, and they moved on.
“When the professor said we had to be mature and serious in here, it kinda got my hopes up,” Mike said an hour later.
They’d found the industrial art gallery, which consisted of discarded metal – railroad spikes, tin cans, miles of copper wire, enough rust flakes to fill a bathtub – welded and piercing and wrapping each other in a room-length sculpture. A junkyard with white walls and bright lights. It filled his mouth with the taste of pennies.
“Maybe he wanted more people to sign up?” Jeff offered. “Like at a carnival they have signs telling you how crazy all the stuff inside is, and only people with strong constitutions are allowed in.”
“Well, it’s going on my course critique. ‘Lied about how much nudity the museum would have.’”
“I’m sure they’ll take that seriously.” Jeff glanced at his watch – only a quarter past two. “We’ve got, uh... Almost two more hours.”
“Awesome.” Mike leaned back in a stretch, his spine popping. “Wanna hit the Starbucks across the street? They prolly have wifi.”
“Sounds good. One more room of this place and I’ll die of boredom.”
That said, the exit was several rooms away. They moved through narrow corridors lined with 60s-style comic art, a completely empty room with a detailed mural of an enormous eyeball staring down from the ceiling, and others that passed so quickly out of recollection they may as well not have existed at all.
Finally, they came to the last gallery, a wide room the size of a tennis court with glass walls looking out on a leafy boulevard. Through them, past the exit-only doors, a Starbucks tempted all comers with its bright green corporate welcome. A bored-looking cop leaned on the hood of his cruiser, watching pedestrians stream by the crosswalk.
Neither of them noticed. Instead they stopped just a few feet inside the hall, and stared.
Finally, Mike spoke. “What the fuck?”
No artwork hung from any of the walls. The wide room was bare and empty, like a showroom waiting to be filled, except for a single display in the center. A huge metal cage, easily ten feet high and just as wide, dominated the space. A jail cell that had somehow escaped its jail. A few feet outside the bars stood stanchions connected by nylon webbing, forming an infinitely less substantial barrier than the prison they protected.
Seated inside, alone on a simple wood stool, was a wisp of a woman. She was dressed modestly, or perhaps just warmly, with a long-sleeved dark shirt and a skirt that fell to her feet. A black scarf concealed her hair. At her feet, tucked behind the stool, were a simple gym bag and a briefcase.
She must’ve heard them, because her head turned a few inches. But otherwise she betrayed no reaction, her hands still folded primly on her lap. The skin of her face and hands was dark, tanned, or perhaps she hailed from some less pale part of the globe than Detroit. Mid-twenties, Jeff guessed, just a few years older than him. If they’d met at a bar, he might have worked up the courage to ask for her phone number.
“Is this an exhibit?” Mike asked. His voice was little more than a whisper, as though they were intruding on someone’s stage. “Are we allowed in here?”
“I didn’t see any signs.” Jeff spun in place to make sure. There was nothing separating this room from the rest of the museum but the open doors along each wall. “I think we’re fine.”
They walked toward the cage and stopped just shy of the stanchions protecting it. A nylon belt girdled the cage, looking as thin and fragile as a spider web beside the metal bars.
Whoever crafted the cage took their job seriously. This was not some state fair construct of hollow aluminum poles propped up on metal panels – this was a cage, with solid iron or steel bars fastened to the floor with heavy-duty masonry bolts. Octagonal metal rods spaced a few inches apart filled out the sides, leaving space for a single door fastened with the largest padlock Jeff had ever seen.
Whoever this woman was, she was staying in there for a while. Although the cage was open-topped, coils of wickedly barbed concertina wire hung like wreaths all around it.
“Amira Menaged,” Mike said. He stood by a small plastic placard on its own stanchion, positioned so the reader was standing in front of the caged woman. “I think that’s her name.”
Jeff sidled over, careful not to touch the nylon rope barrier. The woman’s eyes locked onto him as he approached the placard. They stared at each other for a moment, and he quickly looked down at the sign.
Performance No. 2
Amira Menaged
Amira Menaged was 21 years old when her family fled Aleppo, Syria, in 2012. They spent two years in the Kilis Öncüpinar refugee camp in Turkey before they were admitted into the United States through the Refugee Resettlement Program.
A recent graduate of the Michigan University School of Performing Arts, Ms. Menaged reenacts with Performance No. 2 the famous performance art/experiment by Marina Abramović, who sat in a gallery in Belgrade for six hours and allowed patrons to do whatever they wished to her.
In Performance No. 2, Ms. Menaged has modified this famous work of art. She will do anything that patrons ask of her, while remaining in this cage.
“Ah.” Jeff looked up again at the concertina wire circling the cage. “I get it. It’s like a mini-refugee camp.”
“So she just sits there?”
“Yeah.” Jeff looked down at the card, reading the last line again. “Or, I guess she does whatever we tell her to do, too.”
“Like, anything?”
“Dude, I’m just reading what the card says.”
“Yeah, okay.” Mike licked his lips. “Hey, uh, Amira?”
The woman’s dark eyes suddenly leapt to Michael, and he took a half-step back. Her gaze was full of silence and intent, and Jeff found himself breathing easier not to be its target.
Mike rallied and plowed forward. “Amira. That’s your name, right?”
No response. She stared at him, barely blinking.
“You have to tell her to do something, man,” Jeff whispered.
“Oh, yeah.” Mike cleared his throat. “Tell us your name.”
Amira smiled and shook her head ever so slightly. One hand came up and drew her fingers across her lips.
“No talking, maybe?” Jeff said. “Amira, stand up.”
That worked. The woman leaned forward and stood. She was short, the top of her head barely reaching Jeff’s chin, but she still stared into his eyes as though they were the same height.
Mike grinned. “There we go. Amira, sit down.”
She complied without hesitation, reaching back to gather her skirt and pull it tight against the back of her legs before sitting down on the stool.
“Stand up,” Jeff said.
“Sit down,” Mike shot back, still smiling. Amira stopped halfway through the motion of standing and sank back onto the stool.
Jeff snorted. “Gonna give her a thigh workout, huh? Amira, stand up.”
“Okay, this is pretty neat,” Mike said. He took a step back, arms folded across his chest, and gazed up at the entirety of the cage. “Is it, you know, really art, though?”
“I did theater in high school. This is just like that. So, yeah, art. Amira, stand on one leg.”
The woman complied. She wobbled a bit, her arms extending from her sides for balance, but she managed to hold the pose.
“Cool.” Mike fished his phone out of his pocket. “Hey, take a picture of me next to her?”
“Yeah, sure.” He took the phone and was playing with the controls when he saw Amira wobble again. “Uh, switch legs, Amira.”
“Are you talking to her?” A new voice intruded. Jeff turned to see their classmate Rachel standing a safe distance away. She frowned up at the concertina wire, squinted at the woman in the cage, and took a step closer to him.
“Yeah, it’s a performance art piece.” Jeff figured out the phone’s camera app and snapped a picture of Mike and the cage. “It’s like a mini-refugee camp. And she does whatever you say, for some reason.”
“Why?” Rachel asked. She was already moving to the placard, and scanned it silently, her eyes occasionally darting up at Amira.
“Something about redoing an old performance,” Mike said. He took his camera back and swiped across the screen. “Try telling her to do something.”
Rachel was slow to respond. She scanned the placard again, a little frown on her lips. When she looked up at the cage, her eyes had narrowed, and Jeff could see her nostrils flaring in irritation.
“You’re Muslim, right?” she asked. “You're a long way from home. Take off your headscarf.”
For the first time, Amira paused before reacting. She wavered and put her leg down, then slowly reached up with both hands to pull the scarf back from her temples. Black, shoulder-length hair spilled out from it, and she gave her head a little shake to settle it down. The scarf she bundled up and set on the gym bag behind her before returning to a standing position. Her dark eyes locked on Rachel’s.
“Whoa.” Jeff stepped up to the barrier to get a better look. “Can she do that?”
“Of course she can.” The faint hint of a sneer carried in Rachel’s voice. “No one needs to wear a headscarf, they just do it to flaunt their religion.”
Amira looked like she wanted to respond to that, but whatever unwritten rule that compelled her to silence prevailed. Rachel waited, her mouth open just a hair, ready to retort, but when nothing came she shook her head and turned.
“Whatever, have fun with her.” She walked away.
“Huh.” Mike stared after her, then shrugged. “Guess she doesn’t like refugees. Anyway, wanna get that Starbucks?”
He did want Starbucks, but they weren’t done here, yet. Jeff stared at the crumpled headscarf, then at Amira. His lips suddenly felt dry, and he licked them before looking around the amphitheater. It was still just the three of them. When he turned back to Amira, she was watching him, and he saw the muscles in her jaw tighten beneath her skin.
Yeah, he could do this. There was no one to stop him.
“Amira.” His voice caught, and he paused to clear his throat. “Amira, take off your shirt.”
“Whoa! Dude, she’s not gonna do…” Mike’s outburst faded into silence. Jeff barely heard it at all.
Inside the cage, Amira grasped the hem of her dark shirt and pulled it up. There was nothing beneath but a modest sky-blue bra. She struggled with the shirt over her head, having moved with a bit too much urgency, but finally managed to pull it free of her hair. She balled the fabric quickly, almost angrily, and tossed it onto the gym bag with the headscarf.
It was a few seconds before Mike said anything. “Oh shit.”
Oh shit indeed. Jeff tensed, half expecting police or security or his mother to suddenly show up out of nowhere, but the amphitheater remained as deserted as before. “Yeah. See? Art.”
“Right.” Mike stepped up beside him. “Hey, you think she’ll, uh… you know?”
“Maybe. Amira, take off your, uh, thing. The, uh, bra.”
The corner of her mouth raised in what might have been a smile. Just as quickly it was gone, and she reached behind her back. The straps suddenly came loose, and the bra’s cups fell away. She gathered the garment and folded it with much more care than the shirt, and set it beside her discarded shirt. When she turned back, her arms were held rigidly at her side, and she thrust her chest out at them. Defiantly, he thought, for all that she was half naked.
Something like a giggle worked up Jeff’s throat. Twenty minutes ago they’d been bored out of their minds, baffled by crude, pretentious paintings and pointless sculptures. Now he was staring at a woman’s tits – and a nice set of tits, the size of apples, tipped with dark areola that faded at the margins into her mocha skin. A swell of energy, of power, filled his chest. He did this; he made her disrobe.
Beside him, Mike burst out laughing. “Shit! She did it, man!” He stared at her and fumbled with his phone again. He nearly dropped it trying to bring up the camera app without peeling his eyes from her.
“Awesome. This is awesome.” Some movement caught Jeff’s eye, and he glanced over to see two more patrons standing in the entryway of the amphitheater. They pointed at the cage and the woman inside, surprise clear on their faces. His chest tightened and a cold shock at being discovered rolled up his spine.
But they didn’t move to stop him. And why would they? This was performance art. The woman, Amira, probably knew she was going to end up like this, which was why she brought the gym bag. Their professor’s warning to act mature suddenly seemed more considered.
Mike finally recovered enough to use his phone. The sound of a fake shutter clicking filled the silence.
“Awesome,” Mike echoed. He lowered the phone and grinned. “Bet she’ll take the rest off?”
As it turned out, she would. More patrons filtered in, populating the edge of the room as Amira completed her divestment. When she finished she stood before them, still defiant. The hint of a smile was gone from her lips, though.
Jeff vaguely recalled reading somewhere that Muslims shaved all their body hair. Apparently that wasn’t universally true. Yet another new thing he’d learned today.
“It’s gotta take guts to do this, you know? All to make a point about refugees or something, I guess.” Jeff looked up at the coils of razor wire. They were such an odd, terrible contrast to the fragile, beautiful woman inside the cage, and for a moment some emotion other than giddy excitement penetrated his mind. Something about mercy. His grin relaxed, and he glanced back at Amira. She looked impossibly strong for a person in such a condition, alone except for the scraps of her clothes, a gym bag, and a briefcase.
Briefcase. That seemed a little out of place. He stared at it. “Amira, what’s in the briefcase?”
Nothing. She stared at them in silence. It occurred to him that they would never learn what her voice sounded like.
He tried again. “Amira, open the briefcase and show us its contents.”
That worked. Whatever was inside was light, apparently, because she turned and picked it up without any effort. She set it on the stool, snapped the latches, opened the top, and spun it around to face them.
Jeff blinked. For a long moment his mind simply failed to process what he saw. Beside him, Mike was silent as well, until he finally sucked in a gasp of air.
Every type of needle rested on velvet, glistening silver against rich purple cloth. Long needles, short needles, bevelled syringe needles, acupuncture needles thin as a hair. Sewing needles the size of a pencil. Beside them a row of surgical scalpels lay like soldiers in a rank. Above them all, atop its own cushion in a place of honor, rested a long, single-edged knife with a curved blade.
Behind him, someone gasped. Jeff glanced back to see the crowd had converged and grown to nearly a dozen other patrons. One woman turned at the sight of the needles and walked away. A middle-aged black man in a suit filled her spot, his phone held before him like a talisman, recording.
“Okay.” A sensation like treading endlessly deep water washed over him. He paused to take a breath and let it out slowly. “Amira, close the briefcase and—”
“Wait!” Mike’s voice interrupted before Amira could reach for the case. “Amira, pick up one of the needles.”
“What?” Jeff blurted and turned to him. Inside the cage, Amira plucked a long, slender needle seemingly at random and held it loosely in her fingers. “Dude, what are you doing?”
“It’s cool, just trust me,” Mike said. He was staring at Amira, his eyes wide. “It’s just a performance, you know? Art. It’s probably not even real.”
“It looks real. Really real.”
“Don’t worry. Amira, poke yourself with the needle.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat. She held out her free arm, palm up, and lightly tapped the needle’s point against her wrist. The skin dented, and her body jerked at the sharp touch, but nothing more.
Jeff let out the breath. “Okay, there, see? Come on, let’s let some other people give her orders.”
Mike shook his head. “Harder.”
Again Amira paused. But whatever well of courage she drew from was deeper than Jeff could understand, and she drove the needle down into her arm. Her whole body jerked and she cried out. Her voice was high, and even in that wordless expression Jeff heard the hint of an exotic accent.
She straightened slowly. The needle remained in her arm, sunk at least an inch deep. Blood beaded at the site of the wound and ran down her arm before dripping onto the marble tiles. It painted tiny red flowers at her feet.
“Jesus fuck.” Jeff stepped back and had to close his eyes. A cold sweat broke out along his forehead and back. Someone behind him a woman gasped, and half the crowd pulled away, while the other half crowded forward. Their babbling barely reached him over the buzz in his ears.
“...holy shit that had to…”
“...she on drugs? I bet she’s on…”
“...this legal? This can’t be…”
“...yeah, this is happening right now. I’m at the Detroit Museum of…”
Jeff opened his eyes. The last voice belonged to the black man in the suit. He had his phone up, pointed at the naked woman in the cage, and was narrating what they saw. Probably on Periscope or Facebook.
A hand slapped him on the back. Mike was next to him, grinning like a fool. “Did you see that, man? Did you see that?”
“Yeah, I saw,” Jeff croaked. “Why’d you tell her to do that?”
“Dude, don’t you get it? She brought the needles for this exact reason. The knife too.” He turned back to the cage. “Hey, Amira, pick up the knife.”
A cold fist clenched Jeff’s guts. “No. No, man. Amira, don’t.”
“Amira, pick up the knife. Pick it up. Okay, good.” Mike licked his lips, his eyes fastened on the knife in Amira’s hand. “Cut yourself. Between your breasts.”
That was too much. “Dude, what the fuck are you doing? Do you want her to cut herself?”
“It’s her, man. It’s her. She can stop any time she wants.” Mike raised his voice to be heard over the babble. Others were shouting at her now, trying to give her orders, but Amira’s eyes stayed on Michael and Jeffrey. “Do it, Amira.”
She nodded, her first actual response since they found her, and raised the knife. She placed the tip against the little hollow between her collar bones and pressed. The skin broke easily, and she winced, but she drew the blade down her sternum nevertheless, unzipping the skin beneath the cutting edge. Dark blood welled out, gathered, and dribbled down her fingers and belly and groin.
No. No. This was wrong. Jeff grabbed Mike’s shirt behind his neck, balling the fabric in his fist. “That’s enough. Stop it.”
Mike twisted, smacking Jeff’s arm away with his hand. “Hey, you tell her to stop, then. She chose to come here. I’m just doing what she wants us to do.”
“Fucking hell, man. Amira, put the knife away. And close the damn briefcase.”
She did as he asked. Mike grumbled, but didn’t try to stop her. They watched as she set the knife back on its velvet cushion and started to close the case.
“Wait.” It was the black man, filming beside them. “There’s something in the lid.”
He was right – the briefcase’s velvet lid did indeed have its own panel. A simple rotating latch held the compartment closed. A space for a phone or an iPad or something delicate that needed an extra layer of protection. It was probably empty.
Mike pointed at the lid. “Amira, open that up.”
She did with a simple twist of her fingers. With the lid still raised, the panel simply fell away, swinging to down cover the knives and needles.
Inside the new space, nestled in a specially cut foam pad, was a gleaming short-nosed revolver. Black, textured rubber covered the grip for better handling. Gunsmoke residue darkened the end of the barrel, turning the chrome a sickly gray.
Jeff blinked dumbly. It was all he could do. Except for the occasional cop, he’d never even seen a gun, much less in the open like this. Was that even legal? Detroit was supposed to have tough laws on handguns, even on private property, and…
“Amira, pick up the gun,” he heard Michael say.
There was a rush, a babble punctuated by shrieks, and suddenly the crowd was gone. He glanced around to see them retreat to the open doors, or circle around behind the cage. Only he and Michael and the black man recording with the phone remained.
“Amira,” he said. His voice sounded distant and cottony in his ears. “Amira, is that loaded?”
No answer. She stood as before, the gun held loosely at her side, waiting.
There was another rush as a man with a sweater vest appeared beside the cage. He had a ring of keys in his hands, and fumbled with the lock. A few paces behind him a pair of security guards, armed only with nightsticks, stared at the gun. One of them whispered something into a radio handset strapped to his shoulder – he probably had a direct line to Detroit's emergency services.
That guy looked important. “Hey,” Jeff tried again. “Is that loaded?”
“She’s not supposed to have a gun.” The man looked up at the naked woman, then back down at the lock. His hands shook as he tried each key in turn. “She said she would only have needles. Amira, listen to me. This performance is cancelled. This wasn't in our agreement!”
Amira watched him fumble with the lock. She didn’t put the gun down, or move at all. Instead she looked back at Michael and Jeffrey. Waiting.
Okay, so that’s how it was. “Amira, put the gun away and put your clothes back on.”
“Don’t.” Mike leaned past the nylon rope, grabbing onto the bars. “Amira, keep the gun.”
“DROP THE GUN! DROP THE GUN NOW!” A new voice, shouting so loud it echoed, jolted them all. Jeff stumbled back and turned to see a City of Detroit police officer at the entrance. He had his own gun drawn, held in both hands, pointed at the cage. Even from a dozen yards away Jeff could see the officer’s wide eyes, white all around, and the glisten of sweat on his forehead.
The remaining crowd scattered. The man with the keys dropped them and backed away, his arms raised.
“Officer, wait!” Jeff stepped back, trying to get out from between them. His feet caught, and he stumbled, landing on his ass. He held his hands up, as though they could ward away bullets. “It’s just an act, officer! It’s a performance!”
Mike still hadn’t moved from the cage. He didn’t even seem aware of the cop. “Amira, hold the gun up.”
Slowly, she lifted the gun, raising the barrel a few inches. Someone behind them screamed.
“Amira, stop! Stop listening to him!” Jeff spun back to the officer, who was sighting down the barrel of his pistol. “Officer, it’s just a prop. It’s not loaded, okay? It’s not loaded—”
“Drop it! Drop it now!” the officer bellowed.
The shouting became a din, every one of them at once. “It’s not loaded!”
“Drop the gun or I will shoot you!”
“Amira,” Mike’s voice, calm, barely audible. “Amira, pull the trigger.”
“No! It’s not loaded! Officer, don’t–”
A tremendous roar deafened him, like thunder detonating just inches away. The marble floor beside him exploded as the bullet struck it, pelting him with sharp fragments of rock and dust. Inside the cage, Amira stumbled. Her hand whipped back under the force of the gun’s recoil. She seemed as surprised by the shot as the rest of them.
The cop recovered first. He crouched, as though trying to hide behind an imaginary wall, then stepped forward. His gun barked three times, barely heard above the ring in Jeff’s ears. The cage bars sparked, and something stung his thigh. Two red spots appeared high on Amira’s chest, and she fell. The look of surprise never left her face.
It’s all an act. It’s just an act. Jeff sat on the floor, half-deaf from the ringing in his ears. He tried to stand and slipped on something. Beneath him, blood smeared in the shape of his boot prints.
The cop walked to the cage, gun trained on the fallen girl. A thin haze of bluish-gray smoke drifted in the spotlights above them.
Jeff felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Mike crouching beside him. He breathed hard, nearly gasping, and his eyes were as wide and wild as any Jeff had ever seen. They shone with a mad, rabid light.
“Dude, did you see that?” he said. “She did it. That was... Oh, shit man...”
It’s just an act. She’s fine. It’s just an act. Jeff turned back to the cage, staring at Amira’s motionless form. He waited for the cop to put his gun away, for Amira to stand, and for everyone to congratulate themselves on a performance well done. An act so perfect it would go down in the history of art.
He waited, and waited. Beside him, Mike began to laugh. It almost sounded like he was crying, too.
It's just an act.
He was still waiting when the ambulance arrived to take him away.
The Performance
Not a high-drama start, but interesting enough. I like the descriptions here – effective and evocative without being overwrought, and skilfully weaved into the action. I think we might be better off without the reversal in the beginning, though.
Well, that got interesting quickly. Again, though, an effective transition. I'm a little uncertain about this Rachael person suddenly appearing, though.
Okay, halfway through now, and while I'm I'm enjoying this as effectively creepy, I do worry that it's piggybacking all its emotional weight on the Marina Abramović thing . Okay, so yes, that was explicitly referenced, but that doesn't avoid the problem.
Well, I'm happy to say I was wrong. This complexified itself admirably, ramped up the tension as high as it could go and the end was suitably shocking. I'm impressed. Really, you've made me jealous, which I count as my main benchmark for success in these contests.
Criticisms?
Well, it leaves a slightly sour aftertaste. I feel like the subtext about refugees and callousness and the state of modernity here is barely subtext; it's written in bolded capital letters and underlined three times.
What else? First I think you could remove the bit with Rachel and hand her line to the boys. Second, I think that ending might have more punch if you cut it off where Amira gets shot.
Other than that, this makes the top of my slate so far with ease.
Not a high-drama start, but interesting enough. I like the descriptions here – effective and evocative without being overwrought, and skilfully weaved into the action. I think we might be better off without the reversal in the beginning, though.
Well, that got interesting quickly. Again, though, an effective transition. I'm a little uncertain about this Rachael person suddenly appearing, though.
Okay, halfway through now, and while I'm I'm enjoying this as effectively creepy, I do worry that it's piggybacking all its emotional weight on the Marina Abramović thing . Okay, so yes, that was explicitly referenced, but that doesn't avoid the problem.
Well, I'm happy to say I was wrong. This complexified itself admirably, ramped up the tension as high as it could go and the end was suitably shocking. I'm impressed. Really, you've made me jealous, which I count as my main benchmark for success in these contests.
Criticisms?
Well, it leaves a slightly sour aftertaste. I feel like the subtext about refugees and callousness and the state of modernity here is barely subtext; it's written in bolded capital letters and underlined three times.
What else? First I think you could remove the bit with Rachel and hand her line to the boys. Second, I think that ending might have more punch if you cut it off where Amira gets shot.
Other than that, this makes the top of my slate so far with ease.
Strong story, although I feel I disagree with Scramblers and Shadows on one main point: the relative weight of the original Marina Abramović performance relative to the story. I do not mean any insult to the author by saying this, but I feel that The Performance itself is overshadowed by the material that it takes its inspiration from and offers a less poignant commentary on human empathy, cruelty, and the corrupting influence of authority by comparison.
For those who are not in the know, Rhythm 0, the Abramović performance that this story takes its premise from, involved the performer standing in the middle of the art patrons with a table of 72 items which stated that the patrons could do whatever they want to her.
The exact text used was:
Instructions.
There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
Performance.
I am the object.
During this period I take full responsibility.
Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)
Ultimately, as the performance progressed, the audience became progressively more deplorable in their actions. They cut the clothes from her body using razor blades, cut her body, cut at her throat so one audience member could drink her blood, and a loaded gun was pressed against her forehead. Luckily, there was a protective element of the audience that prevented the trigger from being pulled. What is interesting about this performance is not only was there morbid acts done to the performer when denied her humanity, but also that there was a line drawn when considering what was appropriate. It provides interesting and fresh ideas into what defines mob mentality and what a modicum of power can do to a person.
What I suppose what I am getting at is that beyond the transparent subtext and metaphors relating the performance itself to being a refugee trapped under the authority of outside, specifically immature and petty western influences, this story doesn't have as much bite too it. The author, for our sake and his own, I think, strayed from getting too dark with this story, and because it is done in third person limited with the two boys being the focal point, this is probably for the best, as it is, it is already fairly unbelievable that they would on their own would engage in such depravity. The interesting thing about mob mentality is that when someone is not reprimanded for doing something that would otherwise be considered inappropriate, another person again tests the boundaries of what they can get away with. As such, it is hard to make that sort of progressive dehumanization and cruelty seem natural from a story mainly centered around two people, and the idea that the Michael and Jeff would be so delusional as to not understand the reality of the situation and the harmfulness of their actions without that sort of force egging them on is a level of delusional beyond believably.
The ending falls very flat for me as a result.
The other issue I find is the two lead characters themselves. I understand their purpose in the overall metaphor, and their characterization as rather ignorant, frat-boy types makes sense from that standpoint, but they are severely lacking in personal humanity. Their stripping of Amira is fairly understandable within this context, but beyond that they have no motivation or factors pressuring them to further denigrate Amira—causing them to seem more like monsters than human. This would be fine, if the narrative lens wasn't so tightly on their perspective and instead was oriented around the entire room, but in the current format, they seem more like strawman, tools to make a polemic argument for the purposes of the narrative, rather than legitimate characters. Same goes for the one-line moment with Rachel. I think perhaps what you may be losing is that by making these characters ignorant, boorish, and in Rachel's case, unabashedly prejudiced, is the important message is that we, as westerners and as people, have the same capacity to be like them.
That was the power of the original Abramović performance.
Nonetheless, your command over the written word and method of detailing description is very impressive, and this read was very smooth. From a prose stand-point, this is easily one of the more solid entries.
Verdict: Powerful argument and construction, strong ideas, character execution could use some work, and the shadow of its inspiration lingers large over the product as a whole.
For those who are not in the know, Rhythm 0, the Abramović performance that this story takes its premise from, involved the performer standing in the middle of the art patrons with a table of 72 items which stated that the patrons could do whatever they want to her.
The exact text used was:
Instructions.
There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
Performance.
I am the object.
During this period I take full responsibility.
Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)
Ultimately, as the performance progressed, the audience became progressively more deplorable in their actions. They cut the clothes from her body using razor blades, cut her body, cut at her throat so one audience member could drink her blood, and a loaded gun was pressed against her forehead. Luckily, there was a protective element of the audience that prevented the trigger from being pulled. What is interesting about this performance is not only was there morbid acts done to the performer when denied her humanity, but also that there was a line drawn when considering what was appropriate. It provides interesting and fresh ideas into what defines mob mentality and what a modicum of power can do to a person.
What I suppose what I am getting at is that beyond the transparent subtext and metaphors relating the performance itself to being a refugee trapped under the authority of outside, specifically immature and petty western influences, this story doesn't have as much bite too it. The author, for our sake and his own, I think, strayed from getting too dark with this story, and because it is done in third person limited with the two boys being the focal point, this is probably for the best, as it is, it is already fairly unbelievable that they would on their own would engage in such depravity. The interesting thing about mob mentality is that when someone is not reprimanded for doing something that would otherwise be considered inappropriate, another person again tests the boundaries of what they can get away with. As such, it is hard to make that sort of progressive dehumanization and cruelty seem natural from a story mainly centered around two people, and the idea that the Michael and Jeff would be so delusional as to not understand the reality of the situation and the harmfulness of their actions without that sort of force egging them on is a level of delusional beyond believably.
The ending falls very flat for me as a result.
The other issue I find is the two lead characters themselves. I understand their purpose in the overall metaphor, and their characterization as rather ignorant, frat-boy types makes sense from that standpoint, but they are severely lacking in personal humanity. Their stripping of Amira is fairly understandable within this context, but beyond that they have no motivation or factors pressuring them to further denigrate Amira—causing them to seem more like monsters than human. This would be fine, if the narrative lens wasn't so tightly on their perspective and instead was oriented around the entire room, but in the current format, they seem more like strawman, tools to make a polemic argument for the purposes of the narrative, rather than legitimate characters. Same goes for the one-line moment with Rachel. I think perhaps what you may be losing is that by making these characters ignorant, boorish, and in Rachel's case, unabashedly prejudiced, is the important message is that we, as westerners and as people, have the same capacity to be like them.
That was the power of the original Abramović performance.
Nonetheless, your command over the written word and method of detailing description is very impressive, and this read was very smooth. From a prose stand-point, this is easily one of the more solid entries.
Verdict: Powerful argument and construction, strong ideas, character execution could use some work, and the shadow of its inspiration lingers large over the product as a whole.
Well, this story made me cringe really hard, so it's succeeded on some level. :/
I dunno, author. I'm not really sure this sort of thing works in written form. For Rhythm 0, or something like the Milgram experiment, we're moved and shocked and impressed because it actually happened. Seeing people's dark side in real life reminds us that it's... real. But fiction... the whole point of fiction, on some level, is that it's insulating and safe. It's not that it isn't powerful, but even for people who aren't broken out of their willing suspension of disbelief by the awfulness of what of your characters are doing, they still won't be able to move past the fact that this invented. It's not what your characters are doing that I'll look to in the end, but what that means. Still... I don't think it's drawing any spectacular conclusions. Some people are selfish, unthinking jerks, and some do crazy things in the name of Art.
Moreover, you, as the author, were asking me to put myself in the place of someone doing selfish, awful things, and I didn't like that at all. It took me two or three tries to finish reading this, because I was simply repulsed by what was happening.
Honestly, for me, the most interesting character here is Amira. Unfortunately, we don't get to learn much about her, because she is literally a device to reveal the other characters; that is the very intent of the performance, isn't it? Still, what I'm left wondering about most is what's going on in her head. What motivated her to go to such an extent for her art? Was it for the sake of herself or her audience? What was she thinking, and why was it that important to her?
I dunno if I'd like a story from her viewpoint more or not. Still, I think her position would be better served by the qualities of fiction than that of an onlooker.
You're a talented author, and this story is undoubtedly visceral, even if I don't enjoy cringing. However, I can't help but feel it's aiming for a target it's just not going to easily match.
Perhaps I'm simply not in your audience.
...oh, and this feels like it's skirting pretty close to the edge of the T rating. I guess it is 'Art' though... :P
I dunno, author. I'm not really sure this sort of thing works in written form. For Rhythm 0, or something like the Milgram experiment, we're moved and shocked and impressed because it actually happened. Seeing people's dark side in real life reminds us that it's... real. But fiction... the whole point of fiction, on some level, is that it's insulating and safe. It's not that it isn't powerful, but even for people who aren't broken out of their willing suspension of disbelief by the awfulness of what of your characters are doing, they still won't be able to move past the fact that this invented. It's not what your characters are doing that I'll look to in the end, but what that means. Still... I don't think it's drawing any spectacular conclusions. Some people are selfish, unthinking jerks, and some do crazy things in the name of Art.
Moreover, you, as the author, were asking me to put myself in the place of someone doing selfish, awful things, and I didn't like that at all. It took me two or three tries to finish reading this, because I was simply repulsed by what was happening.
Honestly, for me, the most interesting character here is Amira. Unfortunately, we don't get to learn much about her, because she is literally a device to reveal the other characters; that is the very intent of the performance, isn't it? Still, what I'm left wondering about most is what's going on in her head. What motivated her to go to such an extent for her art? Was it for the sake of herself or her audience? What was she thinking, and why was it that important to her?
I dunno if I'd like a story from her viewpoint more or not. Still, I think her position would be better served by the qualities of fiction than that of an onlooker.
You're a talented author, and this story is undoubtedly visceral, even if I don't enjoy cringing. However, I can't help but feel it's aiming for a target it's just not going to easily match.
Perhaps I'm simply not in your audience.
...oh, and this feels like it's skirting pretty close to the edge of the T rating. I guess it is 'Art' though... :P
Boy, you feel you know someone and then they turn out to be barely constrained blood-thirsty sociopath who flips at the first signal of perceived power.
Go fall down a well, Mike.
Go fall down a well, Mike.
Wow. This wallops you as hard as a hooch draught.
Sometimes you wonder: is the beast really inside the cage, or outside? In this case, you deliberately unleashed the beasts outside – setting off the dignity of the woman inside – calling up a collection of epitomes: the ruthless boy, the black guy recording the whole incident without taking any action, and the edgy cop that will fire even though he's not threatened.
There's prolly a lot of symbolism behind this — Refugees being virtually caged in the country they land in because they don't speak the language? Refugees accepting to debase themselves because they would do anything to flee their country? Other people, especially young, barely regarding refugees as humans? There's probably a mix of all that.
As I pointed out on the chat, it's not the first time I read a story about someone locking themselves up in a cage to draw attention to a cause, but this one escalated far beyond what I was familiar with.
Well done.
Sometimes you wonder: is the beast really inside the cage, or outside? In this case, you deliberately unleashed the beasts outside – setting off the dignity of the woman inside – calling up a collection of epitomes: the ruthless boy, the black guy recording the whole incident without taking any action, and the edgy cop that will fire even though he's not threatened.
There's prolly a lot of symbolism behind this — Refugees being virtually caged in the country they land in because they don't speak the language? Refugees accepting to debase themselves because they would do anything to flee their country? Other people, especially young, barely regarding refugees as humans? There's probably a mix of all that.
As I pointed out on the chat, it's not the first time I read a story about someone locking themselves up in a cage to draw attention to a cause, but this one escalated far beyond what I was familiar with.
Well done.
There seems to be an interesting split here, of people praising this story for its impact and people uneasy about whether it's making any point separate from the context of its nonfictional source. Apologies, author, but I'm going to have to fall on the latter side of the division. Before I do, let me make clear: one, I commend you for being up front about the real-life inspiration, and nothing I say should be construed as an attack on your originality; and two, like the source, this does carry an undeniable emotional impact, so if I were evaluating it strictly based on effectiveness this would be very strong.
My reservation is … well, it comes down to what in my head I call "crossover scoring". As >>ShortNSweet notes, the plot here treads along very similar lines to Abramović's performance art. When you're drawing from a source that already has a powerful emotional impact, I don't feel like I can credit you for any impact arising from references or retellings of that story/event, because what's powerful about that comes from someone else's work. What I have to evaluate this story on is in the ways in which it distinguishes itself from the source, and the ways in which those differences impact my emotional engagement.
I'm going to skip over a bunch of stuff best summarized as "I agree with ShortNSweet" about the nature of that divergence and its effect on the story's impact. (tl;dr: the refugee angle here is new, but feels underplayed; and grounding the actions in two characters instead of an anonymous mob just makes this a moral about a single psychopath instead of the capabilities of humans in general.) Crucially, though, what makes this story as a Writeoff entry stumble for me is: the conflict (the game of chicken: will the artist follow lethal directions? will the audience escalate?) and the theme (when given power over another individual's life, people are scary) are basically identical to Abramović. Using slightly different events to make the same point … well, pales next to the original, because it doesn't take the courage of the original to strike out into the unknown. Plus what >>Not_A_Hat said about the safety of fiction.
(Well, wait, you might say: doesn't this tell its own story by killing the performer? That gets into issues of sacrificing life for art, police violence, etc. But that's more or less a detail of the plot, when the big takeaway of the piece is conflict and theme — it's like saying that Gamera destroyed a Japanese naval base rather than Godzilla destroying Tokyo, and while there may be some smaller unique issues that raises, the core message is still for science not to play god with nature, and the core theme a warning about mankind's hubris. Yes, you get credit for those smaller things, but they're just individual spices in the same recipe.)
What this needs in order to be a strong piece on its own merits is to break that mold. Here's one modest suggestion: make the core of this piece about the audience reaction to the performance rather than the tragedy of the performer. What do I mean? Well, what if … when the gun is pulled out … instead of a policeman arriving, Jeff looks on in horror as Mike continues to gleefully escalate, and then in a moment of decisiveness/curiosity/vindictiveness/etc, says "Amira, shoot Mike in the leg." Suddenly, the story is VERY decisively not about her decision to relinquish agency — but about Jeff's decision to take control of the escalation. With a little bit of effort you could construct a similar scenario which turns this into a question of what Amira chooses when she is handed agency back. Actually, this could tackle a very big question without major changes simply by not having the cop show up and having Jeff tell her to kill someone else rather than herself — though you couldn't end the story there! Whose fault would that death be? The legal/ethical implications of voluntarily ceded agency is a question Abramović's performance never answered, and this would be a hell of a way to tackle it. Any of those changes would very decisively make this its own thing.
Tier: I don't think I can tier this. "Misaimed" means it's fundamentally unable to be edited into something I would like, which is false. But any other rating faces that weird gap between its overall quality and the quality of its purely original aspects. I'm going to score it low as a contest entry, but that doesn't reflect my opinion of its quality in the abstract.
My reservation is … well, it comes down to what in my head I call "crossover scoring". As >>ShortNSweet notes, the plot here treads along very similar lines to Abramović's performance art. When you're drawing from a source that already has a powerful emotional impact, I don't feel like I can credit you for any impact arising from references or retellings of that story/event, because what's powerful about that comes from someone else's work. What I have to evaluate this story on is in the ways in which it distinguishes itself from the source, and the ways in which those differences impact my emotional engagement.
I'm going to skip over a bunch of stuff best summarized as "I agree with ShortNSweet" about the nature of that divergence and its effect on the story's impact. (tl;dr: the refugee angle here is new, but feels underplayed; and grounding the actions in two characters instead of an anonymous mob just makes this a moral about a single psychopath instead of the capabilities of humans in general.) Crucially, though, what makes this story as a Writeoff entry stumble for me is: the conflict (the game of chicken: will the artist follow lethal directions? will the audience escalate?) and the theme (when given power over another individual's life, people are scary) are basically identical to Abramović. Using slightly different events to make the same point … well, pales next to the original, because it doesn't take the courage of the original to strike out into the unknown. Plus what >>Not_A_Hat said about the safety of fiction.
(Well, wait, you might say: doesn't this tell its own story by killing the performer? That gets into issues of sacrificing life for art, police violence, etc. But that's more or less a detail of the plot, when the big takeaway of the piece is conflict and theme — it's like saying that Gamera destroyed a Japanese naval base rather than Godzilla destroying Tokyo, and while there may be some smaller unique issues that raises, the core message is still for science not to play god with nature, and the core theme a warning about mankind's hubris. Yes, you get credit for those smaller things, but they're just individual spices in the same recipe.)
What this needs in order to be a strong piece on its own merits is to break that mold. Here's one modest suggestion: make the core of this piece about the audience reaction to the performance rather than the tragedy of the performer. What do I mean? Well, what if … when the gun is pulled out … instead of a policeman arriving, Jeff looks on in horror as Mike continues to gleefully escalate, and then in a moment of decisiveness/curiosity/vindictiveness/etc, says "Amira, shoot Mike in the leg." Suddenly, the story is VERY decisively not about her decision to relinquish agency — but about Jeff's decision to take control of the escalation. With a little bit of effort you could construct a similar scenario which turns this into a question of what Amira chooses when she is handed agency back. Actually, this could tackle a very big question without major changes simply by not having the cop show up and having Jeff tell her to kill someone else rather than herself — though you couldn't end the story there! Whose fault would that death be? The legal/ethical implications of voluntarily ceded agency is a question Abramović's performance never answered, and this would be a hell of a way to tackle it. Any of those changes would very decisively make this its own thing.
Tier: I don't think I can tier this. "Misaimed" means it's fundamentally unable to be edited into something I would like, which is false. But any other rating faces that weird gap between its overall quality and the quality of its purely original aspects. I'm going to score it low as a contest entry, but that doesn't reflect my opinion of its quality in the abstract.