Lou Perez is Luis Amate Perez

The woman walks across a stage in a flowing white dress. Her dark brown hair is in “Southern curls.” I say “Southern curls” because for some reason I associate her locks with a plantation. This could be a beauty pageant—she is very pretty—but I see no host, or judges, or hear an audience, although I am most definitely in the audience.

After the woman walks across the stage and out of my line of vision, she appears again lying on a round bed, which may or may not be on the same stage. I am still in the audience. There is still no sound.

The woman’s white dress reveals that her left leg has been amputated just below the knee. I do not rethink that walk of her’s across the stage only seconds earlier—I swear she had two legs then!—and I do not imagine the pride her fellow amputees must have felt for her: she won this thing—whatever it is—with its crown, bouquet of flowers, scholarship, etc.—all unseen. No, my mind is on the handsome naked man with short black hair who has appeared on the bed and is fucking her stump.

I know that he is handsome, even though I cannot see his face. But I have no idea how he can so effortlessly and naturally penetrate the beauty queen’s stump. And she seems to be enjoying it. Is her femur even there?

Soon another man joins them on the bed. He is just as handsome as the first man—and his face just as hidden. But I think this second man is the one who pulls the beauty queen’s dress off (although I do not see him do the pulling) to reveal that her body is actually that of a mechanical tortoise. It’s monstrous. Gears. Bolts. Dangerous shears for claws. But her face remains human.

When the second man goes to work on her mouth, I cringe. “Why are we watching this?” I think. “Why are we honoring this?”

But there is no answer. It’s possible that I am the only one watching.