Nathonius

Freelance Amoeba Impersonators Get No Love

Well, I tried. I really did. I gave it my all, but I don't think our society has progressed to the point where ANY portion of the population can appreciate a Freelance Amoeba Impersonator (FAI). As far as I know I'm the only FAI in the history of the world, so I should probably be in the Guinness Book of World Records. Then again, since I only did it for a day, maybe it doesn't count. But I didn't do it for posterity's sake, I did it because I thought people needed it NOW. And I was wrong. I refuse to be one of those artists who thinks he knows what people need to see and lashes out at public ignorance when people don't like him. Hey, if a given performance provides people with something they need, it will resonate with them. If not, be a public servant and find something else to do because nobody wants to hear you complain about being underappreciated.

Which brings me back to the story of my first and last day as a FAI: Never have I been so utterly underappreciated; not to mention humiliated, embarrassed and, quite literally, shat upon. I think the basic problem was that nobody really knew what I was doing. Perhaps I should have explained my "act" (as it were) in some way, but my plan going in was to let observers figure out for themselves what I was doing. I knew they would find it weird at first, but I expected people to flock around me and begin a spontaneous guessing game. They would notice, first of all, that I was not pretending to be a human or recognizable animal. They would notice my apparent lack of a spine, and the mindless, yet organic quality of my movements. Finally, someone would observe a seeming weightlessness surrounding my being and blurt out "Amoeba! Amoeba! He's an Amoeba!" The crowd would cheer, perhaps begin repeating a chant of "AMEEEEEEBA! AMEEEEEEEEEBA!" and work themselves into a nearly insatiable frenzy. Then and only then would I stand and take a few modest bows, humbly accepting donations for my performance before moving on to the next location.

But that was a dream, a vision. Reality proved colder than the grizzled maw of Winter. It was in fact a cold day, which threw my plan off from the start. I had daydreamed the idea while in a warm room. And in my daydream it was springtime, students filled the quad and street gangs lunched on the soft grasses. But I decided not to let a minor detail like the weather upset my chosen course. I arrived in front of the Student Union at noon and began immediately, as planned. My only potential audience was too busy rushing to get out of the cold to take much notice of me. After an hour my legs and arms were completely numb, save the occasional shooting pains that ran through my bones like tiny bullets.

Ultimately, though, it was the complete lack of any support from anybody whatsoever that convinced me to stop. Usually if you're involved in the arts you can do something abstract and experimental and count on a few strange minded people to be there for you and offer their encouragement. But, in this case, that was completely lacking. At no time did anybody say or do anything whatsoever that could have been interpreted as complimentary. People taunted me throughout my performance. A guy wearing a cape laughed at me and called me a weirdo. I resigned to get up and walk away at that point, but since all of my limbs were numb and partially frozen I had to curl into a fetal position for a few minutes to gather up enough warmth and energy to stand. I looked up at the sky, hoping to find some measure of solace in the brightness of the sun, and it was then that the only bird that hadn't flown south for the winter hovered over me and, using the last of its remaining energy, shat upon my face. Its life force spent, the bird fell to the ground beside me and died as I began weeping (not for the bird, for myself). Unfortunately, it was so cold that when I wiped my tears away they had become tiny icicles, which scratched and stabbed my eyes.

So, although I'm not the kind of person who would just give up on his dreams because he had a bad day, I chose to retire after less than two (2) hours as a FAI. Thanks for the suggestion, Husayn. I know you meant well.