Like a Genie in a Bottle

My personality is a collection of errant genies evaporating into and materializing, helter skelter, from a bottle. One genie, one fragment of my personality, is a poet drafting his verses out of things most people cast aside. He has a withdrawn and private nature. Another genie is very sensitive; like porcelain, he is easy to crack. He appears fragile to those who don't know him too well; but woe to whoever offends him. Paradoxically, another genie is good old plastic; he won't crack no matter what you do with him. Then there is the comedian: shy by nature, but at times excitable. He is able to lose his inhibitions at times and has a tone of voice that gently mocks and questions not just others but himself as well. Another genie is outrageous and outspoken, relishing the shock value of his actions and comments, and often clashing with others. His disarming smiles never look like smiles; they appear more like preludes to an irrepressible and nervous hilarity. He is the wild one. Another genie is the calmest among us, and seems to recede and fade into a pale register. He can manipulate an unsuspecting victim into bending his will. And yet another genie vacillates between his desire for independence and his need for approval, who lacks the perseverance to finish whatever he starts.

The genies do not comprise a total personality. There are vacant portions of my personality, whose absences are more real than their presences. I am like a figure in a photograph, slightly out of focus, blurred, somehow distant. It's as if I am partly hidden behind something -- another person, a tree, peering out, like an imp intruding roguishly on a scene I have not been invited to. I appear absent-minded, frowning, as if unaware that I am being photographed. The genies of my personality are like the Cheshire cat, appearing and disappearing at unexpected turns.

The truth is I can't describe myself -- the I of my being: I am my own definition. One can only say that I am I. If you get to know me, you will slowly see each of the genies appear in turn. Gradually, each one gains an outline and a shape, becoming his own inimitable self.

My room is our sanctuary, our self-contained universe, mocking the reality of the city that sprawls outside the door. I feel the presence of the world only through the disembodied noises emanating from outside my window, or through the occasional laughter and footsteps in the corridor beyond my door.

I need you, my readers, to imagine us, for we won't really exist if you don't. Against the tyranny of time and reality, imagine us the way we sometimes don't dare to imagine ourselves: in our most private and secret moments, in the most extraordinarily ordinary instances of life, listening to music, reading a book, walking down a shady street.