Words by Dolly Nguyen
Images by Anton Corbijn
You look across the crowded room, a smile on your face. Your cheeks
ache but they can’t drop, you won’t let them. A hand, rough and
uncaring, guides you by the elbow around the room, dragging you from
one unknown face to another. ‘Nice to meet you’ and ‘what a lovely
couple’ floats out of their mouths while their eyes glaze with
disinterest. But their words don’t penetrate; they just hang above in a
heavy cloud that presses down on you. You stoop to accommodate the
words. But still you smile. You’re careful not to slip up, mustn’t slip up.
No one can know the real you.
‘So what do you do for a living?’ A caustic voice drawls out from the
mouth of a severe looking woman standing in front of you. The
cigarette in her lazy fingers smoulders thickly, a veil of smoke
obscuring your startled face.
‘I uh, I used to teach. Kindergarten. But I stopped about a year ago.’
You trail off and suppress a cough.
‘Why would you do that?’ Her eyes are razor sharp. They slice you as
they flick up and down, taking in the ill fitting black dress that you
should have thrown out sometime in the last decade.