secret performance
written in the framework of
"i fail, we fail, we are failed"
Festival du Belluard/Bollwerk
june 25 - july 4 2026
june 29, 2026
my navel: is this scabies?
mon nombril: y a-t-il là des sarcoptes de la gale?
mein bauchnabel: befinden sich dort krätzmilben?
june 30, 2026
i did not go to L'Art D'Aimer today, even if that was my plan until last night.
instead, i did a secret performance this afternoon.
i went to my family doctor to check if i had scabies in my navel.
and i report this to you as part of my crip aesthetic.
with some details,
vulnerable ones,
as if vulnerability was a form of empowered existence,
as if sharing my vulnerability would make it beautiful and necessary for us all.
my navel started to give me burning sensations 3 mornings ago and was showing unusual redness, so much
so that last night i took a magnifying glass and got worried. was i seeing the typical lines the parasite
makes when it burrows in the skin to move ahead (sillons)? were the few spots i had scratched some of the
vesicules that my skin had made in reaction?
i called several numbers, getting more and more frustrated as apparently there was no other care available
than to go line-up for hours at emergency.
my heart was jumping; my mind getting fuzzy; my stress blurring my vision. in my mind, my parents had
scabies too, and we would need to do an enormous amount of cleaning. it felt like a mountain i could not
climb. no. no way.
my place started to appear darker as if inhabited, haunted by the terrible news.
it became a prison with only worst things to come, a prison that one can't leave. no way out.
PTSD in full blow.
typical.
no way out.
or through death.
and maybe assisted suicide is how i will at some point choose to dignifyingly leave this suffering behind.
maybe.
it is now almost 24 hours later; i sent a photo last night to our local physician on call (médecin de garde)
and he suspected a fungi infection or eczema; i went to my family doctor today; how stressful: he wanted to check my heart
because of symptoms i described; i said no. and then, he checked my navel and confirmed the mycosis. he did not
need a "dermascope" to do this. he used an "otoscope". he also said that the traces that the parasite leaves in the
skin when moving ahead are visible with naked eyes. otoscope + naked eye. i learnt something.
i should be reassured, but my mind is not calm yet. it wants to keep the threat of scabies on a front burner.
i will need to meditate quite a bit to convince it that life can be ok.