“Disembodied,” by Cynthia Hawkins

This is me, age seven, pretending to be a disembodied head.  I imagined the camera couldn’t see the rest of me behind the sofa.  I’d taken pains to arrange the pillow just so.  If I’d known the gag was ruined, I wouldn’t be smiling.

Sometimes I was a disembodied head on an armrest.  Sometimes I was a sideways disembodied head appearing to float up and down a doorframe while the rest of me was upright behind the wall.  Sometimes I was a disembodied head at a jaunty angle appearing to float from side to side atop the high back of mom’s upholstered chair while the rest of me was shuffling in a crouch on the shag rug puckered around the chair’s ball-and-claw feet.  Sometimes I’d slip my arms inside my sweater and let the loose sleeves flap as I asked every family member, “Hey! Where’d my arms go!”   Continue reading →