day 99

Helmi: I am a Pestbuster. Call me if you need to kill some pests.

H: Then everything falls into a literalness of disclosure, into the hands of interpretation.

I: Are you compelled to interpret your identity?

Helmi: Call me.

H: Then everything falls into the realm of performance, or more precisely the performance of an identity where there is no entry into the alterity that always already present in an individual.

I: Individual. Such an elusive word.

Helmi: Call me.

You: Hallo? Helmi? Kenapa tiadek telefon?

I: Sorry? Wrong number. I think the phone company brought his number back into circulation too soon.

I: My name is +65973*****

Helmi: Where am I?

H: But surely, there is never a whole. And never a pure dialectics. Someone gives, as much as someone loses. Not as much. Maybe never as much or as little. Just gone. Just gone as a number. The number that never existed before the mark.

Helmi: I don't know who I am. Can you tell me?

I: Helmi is a figure of speech. No. Helmi is a person I cannot possibly be. But I can imagine him. He speaks Malay. I don't. I can imagine malay. I think.

H: Let's be specific here. Who are you?

I: I can be Helmi.

H: Are you?
Helmi: You are?

I: I cannot be Helmi. I cannot be myself.

H: Wait. Describe yourself.

I: I have a very simple family. I have nothing to say about them.

H: You. You yourself I mean.

I: I am a Pestbuster. Call me if you need to kill some pests.