glory is in her cell, looking at the crocodile she sees coming up through the cell floor. There is a camera in the corner of room.
. . . . . . My mother . . . is a crocodile. Not my mother mother, SHE is an angel down in Nova Scotia, but my . . . birth mother, my . . . crocodile mother. Oh I know ’cause I can feel her eyes on me, those tiny green eyes hard on me, lookin’ right through me to my bones—shakin’ my bones, and waiting.
She is in the swamp the swamp you don’t see and I don’t see but I feel . . . right under me, moving, wet, and waiting. Can you smell it? I can smell it now, all the time. Smells like dead mice and dog food. But sometimes like a baking cake. Really good and really bad. And I feel her . . . waiting and I say to her no. No I am not yours to have I am mine and I am not I am not going to be sucked under the mud by your crocodile eyes so stop lookin’ at me.
You . . . can’t have me.
(to the camera) And you can’t have me you fuckin’ crazy ugly faced perverts you can’t fuckin’ touch me without my consent. I’m reporting you I’m reporting you to God and my crocodile and I’m telling you she is gonna open her big big mouth and her teeth is gonna stab through your head and she is gonna chew you up into tiny little pieces and feed you to her OTHER babies hey wanna wrestle? I could wrestle ya come on in here and . . .
Sound of guards entering.
No, Gail, come on, I was only foolin’ around, I didn’t mean it. Come on, you know I was only . . . No. No . . .
glory moves as if she has been spun around to face the wall.
Stop fucking squeezing my neck. Stop fuckin’ squeezing my neck—you’re hurting me!! You’re hurtin’ my . . . I can’t fuckin’ breathe . . .
glory is in a straitjacket and head restraint, sometimes called “the wrap.” She cannot move.
Think of something nice, that nice nurse Cindy in Saskatoon said think of something nice when they put you in this fuckin’ wrap and this . . . helmet so your head can’t even move, when they do this to ya, just daydream, your dreams’ll keep ya goin’, your dreams my dreams my dreams . . . my . . . oh yah, yah . . .
The bus goin’ to the war museum in Ottawa and it was winter and so much snow but it had melted and then frozen up so it was like a fairyland outside the windows, and so the whole grade nine and ten is goin’ and we are all packed in the bus but no one it sittin’ beside me, but I like my own company and I’m imagining about the story of the Snow Queen, and how I could be her, like, waving a giant icicle and ah freezing everyone I don’t like—turn ’em into statues. Ice statues that wouldn’t never melt unless I said . . .
. . . and then HE gets on the bus later, eh, ’cause he lives in the country and he looks around and he stands there for a second and then . . . sits beside me.
And I am like oh my god ’cause he was so hot, right? My heart’s pounding I swear everyone could hear it pound—he was in grade ten and his name was Ravi and he was like a hockey star. And I’m thinkin’: well he’s prolly just sittin’ beside me ’cause there is no where else to SIT, then he’s like:
“How’re you doin’ there, appleface?”
Ahh—do I say “fine” or “not bad” or “I’m good” or “how are you?” or “do I really look like an apple?” I don’t KNOW.
And I am like losin’ it like an earthquake inside my guts and I smile and say “good,” and he takes my one ear bud and puts it in his actual ear and listens! And we’re listening . . . to my music . . . together . . .
And he smiled. At me.
And then its getting dark ’cause it’s a long long way and we are drivin’ over this bridge and he takes my face in his hands . . .
He kisses me. And it’s like my whole body was melting chocolate spreadin’ over something . . .
Okay don’t lie, Glory, he didn’t kiss you but he did listen to my music with me he did do that and they can’t ever take that away—
(to the camera) You can put me in chains and this crazy wrap and this fuckin’ hockey helmet you can take my pillow you can take my blanket so I’m fucking freezing all the time you can take my paper and crayons and my Harry Potter and you can even take my mind but you can’t take my memories.
You can’t take my memories.