Disembowelment

The man had a friend. Over the course of a number of years they became very close. Gradually he began giving his organs to his friend. After three short years of doing this his insides were diminished and he was hollow. The friend now had two of every organ, holding inside him the internal structure of the other man. The friend’s functioning was increased two-fold.

The man was angry. He had to grow his organs again because he couldn’t take them back. He was angry with himself and with the friend. He will know better than to give the new ones away.

 

Foliage

She put her whole arm into the bush. The branches and leaves scraped her a little but she didn’t mind. She decided she would leave her arm in the bush for as long as she could. Nobody was around so it was the perfect opportunity.

 

Invisible things in the life of a man who lives alone on a hill in Leitrim

He told me that fairies live in the ancient trees that line his driveway. They tell him secrets about his land. He said that an underground stream runs beneath his house and that this little river creates a magical threshold within the building. When he crosses over it his short-term memory is stolen from him. There is a solution, he told me, to his problem. He could drive a long metal rod into the stream at a point before the water would travel to his house. It would divert the energy into the atmosphere – relieving him of his situational forgetfulness. He hadn’t done it yet though.

 

In the ground

There is a hole in our garden. This is the central hole that other holes stem out from. These holes are occupied.

Moles live in these holes. The moles have babies. As the babies grow the moles need to find more food. They channel other narrower holes away from these secondary holes. Sometimes they find worms, whom themselves have tunneled holes, smaller than the holes made by the moles.

 

After Eight

Every evening at approximately 8pm he switches his light on. This is my signal. I leave my house wearing next to nothing. I knock on his door. He answers and in a rather embarrassed manner asks me to leave his doorstep, so I do. But every evening after 8pm he switches his light on.

 

Something Happened

My lung fell out, my knee dislocated, my hair follicles became uprooted. I couldn’t see my toes anymore and I wasn’t sure if I could feel the ground. My tongue was missing so I couldn’t tell if the roof of my mouth was still there. I started to cry. I couldn’t feel the tears on my cheek. I grasped to hold on to anything but there was nothing there. All of the sounds around me were slow and muffled – I felt that my inner ear had slipped slightly out of my body so that what was audible were only reverberations. My head felt heavier than it had felt before and forced my body into an angled incline forward. I screamed, I tried to scream, my tongue wasn’t there and my throat wasn’t there. There was nothing there. After a few moments everything began to blur. My vision turned to grey – an averaged out mush of everything that was visible moments ago. I stumbled forward head first traveling in unknown space.

 

Gravity

Gravity happened when I was eight. Everyone in the village reacted badly to it. Feet and hands stuck to the ground, it was hard not to drag your belly as you pulled yourself forward. It wasn’t calibrated properly – someone had made wrong calculations. After a while somebody new took up the position, things changed and gravity became an enjoyable force.

 

Ooze

I took both of his eyes from his head, dropped them on the floor and stamped on them aggressively. Each broke and tore open – gloopy fluid oozed out and when I had drained them I picked up the empty sac membranes and put them in the bin.

Later, my mother lifted the black bag filled with rubbish out of the bin. There were some small holes at the bottom and a brown liquid oozed out and dripped to the floor.

 

 

Tracy Hanna is a visual artist based in Dublin. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from DIT in 2007. Over the past number of years her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Ireland and the UK. She recently exhibited as part of Futures 13 at the RHA, Dublin (2013) – a group exhibition that highlights strong emerging talent in visual art in Ireland. In 2013/14 her work is part of a touring exhibition in the UK entitled ‘Walk On: 40 Years of Art Walking’. She will have a major solo exhibition of her work in 2014 at Highlane’s Gallery in Drogheda, Co Louth. She has just started to write. http://www.tracy-hanna.com