This is the fourth instalment of ‘Ursula’, a comic by Michael Hawkins we’re currently serialising. Catch up on the first, second, and third chapters.
So, I’m dating this boy and Ishka is dating his friend, it’s kinda weird but not really. Sometimes we all hang out together, sometimes separately.
Mine is called Trel. He’s somewhat different to the kind of dude I usually date. Um, like, he’s super smart, earnest… definitely a dork but at the same time there is something unassailably cool about how he’s so much himself. All up he’s so rad… but is he for me?
Um… maybe? For some reason his awkward touch really turns me on.
Pretty soon I feel we’re involved. Like, I’m tied up in his schemes and he in mine. While we’re falling asleep I picture all sorts of bizarre and tantalizing things that we’ll perhaps one day eat.
Round the same time, I start working on a video art project with our friend Bruce. It’s kinda Maya Deren meets Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, but for the internet age.
I learnt how to use the school’s editing equipment in first year but I’ve never been that passionate about it til now. It’s so amazing being able to digitally manipulate these images… images of me and my friends… of moments of fantasy that are just happening now.
It feels like I’m with people more than ever before. When I am alone for a night it’s a reunion. I put on Touch, dance around the house, try on tights and imagine my butt giant among mountain ranges.
My thoughts get intense… what is this “me” I’m trying so hard to protect? Logic chases its own tail… the eternal binary of thing and not thing. If it all comes back to that, then I don’t have to be anxious, right? I can just surrender to the life that comes my way.
But still…
Michael Hawkins is a Melbourne-dwelling comic book and visual artist of Tasmanian and U.S. derivation. He believes in mystery.
Keep an eye out for more instalments from ‘Ursula’ in the near future. While you’re waiting, grab a copy of The Lifted Brow #19 to see more of Michael’s work.