... would the spirit return?
I do not believe so, the body fails and falls. But the body is not the truth of what we are. The spirit will not return to a ruined house.
The world punishes men and women differently. There is scandal wherever Byron and Shelley go, but they remain men. They are not dubbed hyenas in petticoats for living as they please. They are not called un-men when they love where they will. They are not left unprotected and penniless when a woman of theirs walks away without a thought. (What woman does walk away without a thought? Not even the bitterest nor the most vilely abused.)
He said, There is always loss, always failure. Don’t you think these
experiments are going on in secret, in other parts of the world? Where
human life is cheap? And if a hostile power were to achieve this … Jesus
– they have already modified an embryo in China. Without any oversight
or protocol at all. Don’t you think they are working on other things too?
This is madness, I said.
What is sanity? he said. Can you tell me? Poverty, disease, global
warming, terrorism, despotism, nuclear weapons, gross inequality, misogyny, hatred of the stranger.
Race, faith, gender, sexuality, those things make me impatient, said
Victor. We need to move forward, and faster. I want an end to it all, don’t
you see?
An end to the human, I said.
An end to human stupidity, said Victor.
I found in those days that my happiest times were outside and alone,
inventing stories of every kind, and as far from my real circumstances as
possible. I became my own ladder and trapdoor to other worlds. I was my
own disguise.
When I look in the mirror I see someone I recognise, or rather, I see at least two people I recognise. That is why I have chosen not to have lower surgery. I am what I am, but what I am is not one thing, not one gender. I live with
doubleness.