The Speech – 25th August, 2010

Recently, I was asked to speak in front of a room of strangers sorted in lines in a basketball-court-sized space. Knowing when this would occur brought its occurrence faster, and, although I have gotten better at distracting myself, I still go willingly as a prisoner of irrational fears in these wars I wage against myself.

I am in this state, blindfolded by my fear – I cannot see with my eyes what will happen to me, and so I see with my imagination. It is the worse thing that could happen – my mistakes could be unforgettable, laying a foundation of self-doubt upon which future misimpressions would outnumber my accomplishments. I could be eight years old again, standing in front of a church congregation and overpowered by something invisible, rippling out of the congregation’s eyes and down into me through my breathing apparatus.

It is something that is unconcerned with the bigger picture – how unimportant reciting lines at a Harvest play would eventually seem after Harvest plays have been left behind, along with religion, in a distant past. It is something inescapable that stalks me from the shadows – the background places – possessing me at will, swallowing me up until I am drowned in it, and my hands are cold and wet. When I am not made dead by it, I see myself as a creature poorly adapted to live simultaneously in two inhospitable places, both of my own creation.

I’d traveled over the weekend with friends to the Earth Celebration on Sado, a small island off the west coast of Japan (photos above). This meant that I’d not had much time to invoke this Tuesday-me on a stage and sabotage him there, sticking him full of invisible pins in the present, before he was anywhere near it. I’d found out in a last minute, nobody-was-really-sure-of-anything way on Friday that someone in authority wanted me to read a speech at the Contract Signing Ceremony to be held this Tuesday.

About an hour before giving the speech, my vision blurred as it does when I read excessively without my glasses. When this happens, I can only focus on one small part and everything else is vibrating. I continued not to wear my glasses (meant to be worn once my eyes are open) after suspecting, years ago, that ophthalmologists have no good reason to wish your eyes better, and then, having not worn them for a substantial time, an optometrist told me: “Well you’ve got an astigmatism in your left eye, but you’re no longer short-sighted in your right.”

In this habit of self-diagnosing and remedying symptoms accordingly, I bought something to drink (fizzy and urine-colour) from a selection of vending machines in the building in which the ceremony would be held, hoping this was indeed a hypoglycaemic episode. I’d already practiced my part with the two others who’d be on stage with me – one reading the paragraphs before and after mine, and the other, on my right side, translating what we said into Japanese.

It would all go like this: shortly after the ceremony had begun, our names would be called out in succession, to which the three owners of the names would respond with a loud, “Hai!!” and stand. We would then turn to our left, stand before the panel of officials and bow together, turn again and walk up shallow steps to reach the stage, (hoping not to trip), Chrystal leading the way. There, we’d take our positions at the microphones which faced the audience, as did our backsides, since we would face the Superintendent. Another bow at the sound of the click of Iker (the translator’s) heals on the stage – the men’s hands by their sides for the bow, Chrystal’s clasped in front. We’d say our parts, about how hard we would work and how honoured we were, pausing at prearranged times for the translation and then bow at the end (after the second “arigato gozaimashita” [polite thank you]), turn, walk down the shallow steps, (hoping not to trip), queue again before the panel and bow, and return to our seats. I could easily get it all wrong and shame my nation.

My normal way of seeing, taken for granted, returned to me in such a gradual fashion that I did not notice. Someone said, “The Superintendent is here,” and a silence shut its lid over the room, as if we’d all been taken into something’s mouth. I can’t do this, I thought, and, although it is not unusual for me to think this under these circumstances, along with other thoughts about my heart stopping or that maybe, when I open my mouth, nothing will come out, I was once again certain that I couldn’t do any of it.

Head facing front, I knew the members of the board had sat when the MC started the evening’s proceedings. The adrenaline coursing through me made my heart thump, and I was sure you would hear it in my voice, or that it’d beat the words down into my chest where they wouldn’t be heard at all. The nameless thing had possessed me and was taking me along in front of more than one hundred adult humans. It lifted me out of my seat after it said a “Hai!” that was so loud it surprised even me, and then it took me through the stages, which included a near fumble before our second bow on stage, when the Superintendent decided to reach to adjust our microphones, interrupting our synchronisation.

When it was my turn to read, its voice erupted out of me. I listened to and examined it as if belonged to someone else, although it will not be owned. They’re all looking at my boxie (Barbadian dialect for ‘buttocks’), I thought. The Superintendent smiled and nodded, his eyes almost closed, like people old enough to be considered wise.

And then it was over. There was no contract signing at the Contract Signing Ceremony, but we received a contract which we were warned is irreplaceable [an annual contract that, during the five year duration of my stay in Japan, I would have no use for] – it looks as if it is written in Klingon. I felt physically incapable of keeping myself upright as the tide of adrenaline went out, but did not think of collapsing because there was free food to be tried out and perhaps swallowed at the banquet.

I got my picture in the paper for being the first Barbadian in Takefu Japan!

The more you zoom in, the more I resemble a duck wearing a toupee.