?Interrobang! · Track 93 · middle
Can a Part Stand for the Whole
OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): letters from a secret admirer, a hidden crush. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Full Body Fiona — hand-and-foot model from a Manhattan studio; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: the outer Balleny Islands, off Antarctica. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Fiona models single body parts though she's Full Body; left her secret-admirer letters on a remote Antarctic isle. Can a part stand for the whole of being wanted?
Lyrics
The Balleny Islands. 1839 on the charts. No one lives here. Just the groaning of the ice and the sharp smell of penguins on the wind. And this. A small packet, tied in blue silk. The paper is brittle with frost. The ink, a faded navy. Letters addressed to a ghost. To a name that feels like a joke, or a prayer. "Full Body Fiona." I unfold the first one. "I saw your hands in the Piaget ad," it says. "And I knew the rest of you must be a masterpiece." They paid you for the line of your wrist. For the perfect arch of your foot. A life in pieces, under the studio lights. But these words, they wanted the rest. The unseen whole. Can a part stand for the whole of being wanted? Does the love for a fragment ever reach the heart? I can see you in that Manhattan studio. The photographer says, "Fiona, just the fingers. Relax the thumb." You are an ankle. You are a curve of a calf. Disconnected. Catalogued. You sell the parts so the whole can pay the rent. But this writer, this secret watcher... He saw the person attached to the perfect hands. He imagined your laugh. They paid you for the line of your wrist. For the perfect arch of your foot. A life in pieces, under the studio lights. But these words, they wanted the rest. The unseen whole. Can a part stand for the whole of being wanted? Does the love for a fragment ever reach the heart? So why leave them here? At the bottom of the world. The most remote address for a love that felt... too close? Or not close enough? Maybe you brought the only proof you were ever seen completely... to the one place no one would ever look. A love for a full body, frozen on an island of ice. Full Body Fiona. Was it too much to carry? This beautiful, impossible proof. I fold the letter. The wind takes the question. And the ice answers with silence.