Featured Works
FUSION City
The Pike by Alexander Suarez
The Bare Bones of ‘Bare All’
by Scott Nanos
It’s three fifteen in the afternoon when I arrive at the photographer’s studio. The entire apartment is one large room. All four walls consist only of brick and black cavities where brick once existed. A lonesome, feeble wood column reluctantly holds up the entire ceiling. It moans in agony as I pace the room, threatening a collapse. The door latch clicks shut with an irreversible finality. I’m trapped.
I peel off my shirt at a glacial pace. My breathing reduces to quick, shallow wheezes. I belatedly realize why most nude models change into robes first. My fingers, shaking like dogs in the rain, move to my shoes. I blink, and both of my useless hands are ensnared in a tangled labyrinth of shoelace. I forcefully shake them free, curse under my breath, and kick my shoes off. They collide hard against the wall. The column groans in pain. My socks, a pair of black cotton pythons, asphyxiate my mousy ankles. They are a relief to uproot.
I’m now face to face with the agonizing affair of taking off my pants. The caterpillars chewing at my stomach have mutated into full-blown butterflies. Cacophonous, imaginary laughter floods my ears. Conceptually (in the realm of art), the human body, regardless of shape or size, is beautiful. But ideals can’t be woven into a safety net. And I’m about to take the plunge.
My jeans take a nosedive. They crash-land into the floor with a deafening echo. I’m only one garment away from complete nakedness. The photographer disembowels the camera and bluntly forces in a new roll of film. He’s feeding the beast. It viciously gnaws on its meal with predatory playfulness. I hold my breath and shut my eyes. I pull down my briefs. There’s nothing left between my heart and the lens but skin. I am completely nude. I am completely vulnerable.
I open my eyes. The muscles in my face tighten and contort, twisting uncontrollably into… a smile? I’m smiling! I feel weightless. I bounce about the room, pausing in one area, then another. I comfortably lean against a windowsill. The camera shutter flutters with excitement. I humorously sit on a silver and red ten-speed Motobecane. I lounge on a blank velvet loveseat and smoke cigarettes.
A new roll of film is switched in, and the room transforms into a prop warehouse. I happen upon a pair of neon orange rimmed sunglasses. They’re so gaudy I have to put them on. A bottle of pink lemonade rests on the kitchen counter. I pour myself a glass and sip it in front of an opaque Kamakura furniture screen. The lemonade tastes like a sunset in Palawan.
Time flies and before I have a chance to catch my breath, the session is over. I begin to put my clothes back on, but I don’t hurry the process. I feel no immediacy to re-enter clothed society.
I say goodbye to the photographer and leave the studio. As I’m walking down the stairwell I come to an enlightening conclusion. Was I vulnerable because I was completely uncovered? Or was I impregnable because I had nothing to hide? The answer is easy. I was nude, not exposed.
Scott Nanos currently studies in the Music Therapy department at Berklee.
Her Diary
by John D. Lippincott
It hides among shadows beneath her bed
With shoestring wrapped around to keep it closed.
I quickly read my name in streaks of blue
Across a page of cluttered memories.
My conscience, strong and able, chose to let
This bold intrusion slide with doubtful eyes.
The me who lives inside this private book,
Would never snoop, or even drink a beer.
John D. Lippincott currently studies at Berklee and is a student editor of FUSION.