The door to Pandora’s box read “Welcome”. I was handed a skeleton key and permitted 24/7 access. Excited like a child rushing on adrenaline I freely entered, toyed with her vessel, peeled back stacks of cardboard boxes, mounds of blue plastic tarpaulin, dirty cotton shroud and clear cellophane bags. I inhaled her secrets, became consumed. Enveloped in cacophonous traffic noise of Colonial West Bengal, I endured untold hours sitting in stillness on a pan and chain beam scale in balance with my weight in bare bones. I meditated on finitude, the foibles of imagination, demystification of truth and the scaling of justice in our globalizing world. I captured rich and exotic audio, video and photographic source material as I swept, sorted and sat in balance floating on my pan facing down death. By day 49 it had become clear I had flown very close to the flame. The bone hoard was immense –easily pointing to bodies in the thousands over generations. My immersion complete, in time I abandoned my anchor. Overwhelmed in sensory hyper-stimulation, I free-floated far outside of my acculturation –vigilance to psychic dangers dismantled. In my journey’s dissociation, I encountered an inner cold colder than any Canadian winter as my body wept from every pore under the oppressions of 55˚C. I flew high, journeyed deep, relinquished equilibrium, became alienated. I returned from the exposure, a piece of me wide-awake, open and clear sighted –gifted with a new view to the end of the world.
© nichola feldman-kiss 2021
© nichola feldman-kiss 2021