E: Close enough.
A: Especially for him though?
E: For, but not especially.
A: For who else then?
E: [non-committally] Oh, you know.
Black.
The Eye Machine
Bare black stage. Eight feet above stage level, a rostrum. On it, a woman, clearly visible, strapped to a board. Arms and head strapped, to render her immobile. She does not attempt to remain immobile but does not actively struggle against the restraints. Delivery rapid but comprehensible. Human.
EYE: What if it couldn’t? I? What if she? What if she said fifteen things, all in a row. Five things. Ten. What if there was some noise? A loud crash. A bang. It can be very distracting, you know. Di-stressing. De-mystification is also a thing, you know. After all, there is the large and small. There is the broad and slim. Narrow. Lacking in shape. There is the long and the short of it. The shorter. The very short. What if she. I. Didn’t know how to say it. Didn’t know how to say? Didn’t know. What if it was right there? A bit to the side? At an abstruse angle? In the wings? If wings went. Or go? If there was no stop and go? If there was go only? If there was only stop. No. Stop. Go. No. Stop. And what if she didn’t think this was like anything? If there were no metaphors. Antonyms. Metonyms. If there was only what it was, and the story was told at the same time it was. If there was no story. If there was only is? If this was the one way. The only way. Only the way. If she felt that her legs were there. Hands were there. If her face and head and all the other bits just sat. In time. In the here and now. The then and there. If she could not see around the corner. If there was no corner to see around. If the corner, or not, was the end of it all. But if the corner was the be-all and end-all, of it all. Of everything. If there was no everything only this thing and that was all things. If she thought like that. If she thought that. If there was no getting to. If there was only is. If is, is the thing she liked to think except there is no like and there is no think, there is only is. There is no only. There is, is. Is, is all there is? If she decided nothing was in the offing because nothing was in the offing. There was no offing, eventually or inevitably or ever. If there was no ever. If there is only is. But not only. Just is. Here. Now. Continually. Thus far and as far ahead as the eye can see. If the eye can see. If the eye only is. If the eye just is, without interpretation, intervention of the brain or even emotion to bring it on. To pursue it from itself to whatever is next. What if she is stuck. Brittle. Or stuck. Fast. Or stuck. Hard. But not any of these things. Only settled forever. Except there is no settled and there is no forever. If she cannot find a way out because there is no way. Because there is no out. Because there is no because. Just is. On and on and on. If the eye cannot look at itself. If the eye cannot look at anything else. If the eye cannot look. If it just belongs to a system of seeing which it cannot impact, interpret, depict, construe, transpose, contextualise. That’s the thing. If there is a thing. If the eye – God help us. If the eye – God help us. Sees infinitely, interminably what it is shown. If it knows only what it is shown. If it is created from what is shown. Can be only what it is shown. And what it is shown is
Fat girls
Thin girls
Sex girls
Rape girls
Hit girls
Killed girls
Dead girls
Lost girls
Stupid girls
Wild girls
Mothers
Martyrs
Pigs on sticks.
Desiccated.
Dehydrated.
Detested.
Grandmothers hanging from the goalposts of their pasts.
Women as animals.
Meat women.
Leg women.
Rumps.
Tits.
Mouths agog ’gape ’ghast.
Willing.
Innocent.
Wrecked.
Racked.
Hopeless.
Plain.
More beautiful than a summer’s day.
A red, red, rose.
A bird in flight.
More ugly than a
She
Girl
Women, woman
Female
Chromosome
Hormone
Hairy leg.
There for your vaginas and
Your bras
And
Your breasts.
For your high-heel shoes
And tampons
And tights
And make-up bags
And made-up fights.
We see you.
Saw
We
From the blender.
Buzz.
In a body.
I am
Forever.
Buzz buzz.
Engendered, ’dangered, entreated.
Damn!
You are looking, right the way through.
Looking at me.
Looking. Look.
Staring at
Undressing me.
Hitting
Fucking
Teaching me to
Cry
Fight
Puke
Fall
Fail
Finesse.
Finish what I started.
Finish what you started.
Owe you.
Owe you
EVERYTHING.
Mouth up.
Mouth down.
Mouth open.
Legs open.
Wings clipped.
Free to be filled with
Dumped with
Sumped
Damped down.
At liberty always to see
Ha ha ha.
I see.
Saw.
Seen.
Everything.
And you for
And you as
And you were.
And she has been.
And they will be
Or will not be.
Looked on
Cast to
Glanced at
Picked!
Fucked.
Forgiven.
Fucked.
Forgotten.
Or not.
Or not forgotten.
Or not forgiven.
Right the way to.
All the way to
Kingdom come down here and get a look at this
And be.
And be not.
What I will.
Or choose.
Or wish not.
And I am.
Amid.
The outside of.
The leaching from.
And lurching out of.
Reaching through.
And being.
Because of.
Quaint ideas and quiet quotas.
Qualitative concerns and quantitative problems.
Difficulties – say ‘Difficulties’ or someone will complain.
Difficulties.
Difficulties.
Difficulty that
I am.
In the
Ether
Earth
In the underground.
In the vaults of cracked teeth.
The smite of lungs.
Black eyes.
Burnt flesh.
Carved and dined.
Damage.
I am.
I am that.
Damage.
To the scope.
To the scape.
To a whole life’s work.
Circe.
Satan.
In the breathing.
In the blood.
In the long mellow night.
From the moment I woke.
Spanish flu and fly, the same.
I am.
And she.
And I am.
A powerful eye staring out from the depths of
your machine.
Black.
About the Author
Eimear McBride is th
e author of three novels: Strange Hotel, The Lesser Bohemians and A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. She is the recipient of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award. In 2017 she was awarded the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading.
By the Same Author
A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING
THE LESSER BOHEMIANS
STRANGE HOTEL
Copyright
First published in 2020
by Faber & Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2021
All rights reserved
© Eimear McBride, 2020
Cover design by Faber
The right of Eimear McBride to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–36050–5
Mouthpieces Page 2