Your Turn by Kelly Grotke

What sort of character am I? A man with a bad haircut and perhaps a bit of dandruff, worn down by life and forever rubbing his bodily particulars against the ill-fitting suit that clings to him like some lifeless shedding skin. Not terribly original, I’m sure. A person so apparently unreceptive to his own existence that the possibilities of doing good have grown as remote from him as those of doing evil. Someone who might even be pitied but for the fact that the sour scent of his presence sets the nerves slightly shivering with repulsion. A living memento mori. How clever of me, how deliciously inward…. But one always has difficulties seeing what is there, I must admit. This is how I imagine myself, for you, since you asked. And I have tried to be honest. The extent to which a self-portrait may yet be a work full of artifice and cunning, you may be in a better position to judge, though I find your curiosity unusual. Not unsettling, mind you, it could never be that. I am what I am, and I am quite suited to my time. And you? Who are you? Your turn, and I am waiting. Because if we take this little exploration to heart, as you seem so to desire, then a certain reciprocal interest need hardly be excused, however much it may simply be a conventional courtesy of what passes these days for satisfactory social intercourse. So I am waiting, still….

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