Eyecatcher
I remember that I started using different names
Did I tell you about that?
About my grandmother?
I was completely sold on Disney movies
Ariel
Belle
Aurora
Mulan
Yasmine
Snow White
Although I always found Yasmine to be very peculiar
Because she’s the only one who’s brown
I mean Mulan is Chinese
but she’s white
Give everyone a different color
Very confusing as a child
Anyway
I wanted to have a name like that
Like a princess
Because maybe then I would be a princess too
I thought
So I forced my parents to call me by different names
Else I just wouldn’t react
And every day a different name
It must have been so confusing for them
I would sit in front of my parents
At the kitchen table
And I would present my schedule for the week
Monday
Ariel
Tuesday
Aurora
Wednesday
Belle
And so on
My father at the bottom of the stairs
‘Ariel, it’s dinner time!’
And me at the top
‘It’s Thursday: my name is Mulan!’
And now my name is
Got to stay true to your friends
Evangeline
From the movie
You know
The princess and the frog
Come on
The movie about that little firefly who is in love with a star
Okay
Actually it’s about a poor black girl who wants to open up a restaurant but doesn’t have to money and marries a prince to get it.
But that doesn’t matter
Actually it’s about that little firefly who’s in love with a star
And everybody just keeps shouting to him that he can’t be in love with a star
But that little firefly doesn’t care
Because he’s in love with the prettiest star in the universe
‘Evangeline’
In the end he dies
He gets squashed
The firefly
And then
Suddenly
When you’re mascara is seeping into your mouth from crying
There it is
A second star appears into the sky right next to Evangeline
My mother always called my grandmother
To explain my names of the week
She couldn’t remember them anymore
So she would write them on her calendar so she wouldn’t hurt me
God, I miss that women
Excerpt from 'Eyecatcher'
© Marijn Claes 2017