Family Resemblance / ‘no what ana also do oil painting’
We have that at home too: a scroll of cotton wrapped around wooden rods at the top and bottom, and hung from a hook like a towel on a hanger. It is a rectangle divided in two: there is a field of colour above (Osprey’s is adorned with stripes) and two plain patches with little pockets below (which are missing from Osprey’s). One more observation: there is a square mirror smack in the middle of Osprey’s scroll; and encased in that mirror is a vague face—possibly that of a woman—which fades away towards the sides, almost like the afterimage left behind by smoke from the stove on aluminium foil.
Each and every one of us also carries in ourselves an afterimage of our biological parents. Even after they depart, they live on in parts of us and then there are yet smaller parts of parents, grandparents… and eventually, if we venture far enough, we will find that we were all siblings at one point or another, much like how if we were to trace any capillary from the root of the iris through the ciliary region and then past the pupillary margin, we would eventually end up in the same black hole of the pupil.
I see how there would be no continuity of species, culture, and histories without the bloodline. The bloodline could very well end with me, although—
Suppose two fathers bring a child into this world through surrogacy. Would you be able to tell if the child has not a modicum of your DNA in them? Would your mother’s first instinct upon receiving the newborn be to inspect them thoroughly as she would a stranger? How would she comment on the likeness?
As if blood matters. It is the illusion that does. That a bond forms between two hitherto strangers, could be the result of a most bloodless encounter. Like non-penetrative intercourse between two b—1. Which █ would not—never—entertain. As though we could only be siblings: those two identical patches separated by a gutter’s inch, right beneath the watchful gaze of god herself.
1 jdjoqdoqjwdoqjwdojoqjd. July 14, 2018. Urban Dictionary. ‘The male who receives the anal penetration in gay sex.’