Back to earth.
Falling to earth.
Earthbound.
Grounded.
Earth eater.
Jemima was running through her head a great many number of titles that could be the beginning of her memoir -her memoir for an audience of one. There were a good handful of reasons for that. That is to say, details of her life’s story demanded complete secrecy. And, at present, this was easy enough to maintain.
Jemima was hunkered down in a cavity within the roof of an acquaintance she felt warm towards. This acquaintance had no knowledge of Jemima’s benign affection, whereabouts, or the structural composition of the housetop. Bizarrely, this house sort of had two cavities one could hide in; the first being the gap between the space of occupancy’s ceiling and some misc infrastructure that divided this gap to create a second landing nestled under the roof. The severance-infrastructure (which could be considered the actual ceiling) was not visible to the house’s inhabitants. Jemima was taking salvage within this non-space -the architectural oddity of the actual ceiling and roof. One could interpret the space generously as a ‘dwelling of limited means’.
She thought back to the discourses of regular society and the concept of the ‘glass ceiling’, finding this living arrangement as wholly ironic. Her agency was now tethered and dependent on an invisible space. A space of existence that was not seen or known, a non-space, and so, her ‘being’, dependent on such a space, felt to her a disposition of unknowingness. She thought back to her year 8 English teacher, Ms Ortal, and her garb about ‘breaking the glass ceiling’. A feminist target of agency and occupancy. But, if she had found agency between ceilings, and at least beyond one that was ‘known’, what did this mean for her, or other feminists, and the targets of their complaint?
If a key desire of feminist combativeness was to break the phenomena (wrapped up as an allegory) of the glass ceiling, it spoke to the spirit of upward mobility and to enjoy the freedom of economic expansion. Ultimately, Jemima had empathy for this financial project of people who were, by and large, oppressed by a domineering subsection of the populous. But for Jemima, upward mobility was literal and a condition of visibility that
often rendered her a target. If she decided to make use of her abilities to move through spaces unconventionally, to levitate, she was at risk. In the moments she had been spotted in such an act she almost always became the target of investigations and heated inquiry. Her movements threatened the order of things. On Earth, gravity was a law of nature and so her capabilities were, generally speaking, considered frightening. Though, in primary school, in her youth, otherwise known as childhood (the earth-centric word for early entity development), she felt differently; her reflexes and capacity to levitate was embraced, celebrated, and even, on occasion, mimicked by other children. As time went on, however, these reflexes seemed to fall out of existence for her peers. Eventually, her ability became a simple fiction. A childish anecdote that was at first laughable and later an unreliable, quasi- disturbing memory.
If she could maintain this living arrangement, she would have to remain unknown to the world and its arrangements; for example, she could not arrange
a licence or any identification records to this unrecognised place of address.
Still fixated on the allegory of the glass ceiling, Jemima lay back in her nook wondering if the fabled barrier continued to imply to earth-women today that it might access those that break it, the sky and not the bleak combobulation of materials that protected her currently. How would Ms Ortal cope with the revelation that beyond the ceiling that is known is just a damp crawlspace filled with possum shit and the remnants of hazardous roof insulation? An entirely unwelcoming and unfulfilling purgatory of shelter for the exceptionally lofty- she thought.
Nonetheless, it was home. She could remain untroubled by the authorities. She could rest and make peace with an unrelenting solitude those on Europa wouldn’t see fit for its most threatening dissident. Yes, this abode would mean sacrificing all means of verbal address, just until things really cooled down.
Then, just for a brief moment, she entertained the thought of moving on. What it would mean to opt for a more recognised existence and get a better grip on her reflexes; her very literal flight mode, you might say.
Earth Eater by Emmett Aldred
Relinquish, oil on canvas
My Love is stronger than my fear of death, oil on canvas
Flight Path, oil on canvas
Side Eye, oil on canvas
Bow, oil on canvas
Olive, oil on canvas
Corset, oil on canvas
