Daisy Lafarge

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Boundary Issues

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If I tell you what to do, will you be good? Now. Hold your arm out in front of you, back of
your hand to the ground, palm up. Like that. The knuckles curl in because they are used to
forming a claw around your phone. But no, no looking. Your device is confiscated until we
are done here. You flex the fingers open like a crab on its back, feel the tight pads of your
hand unfurling, the muscles stretching to a new neutral. Good. The joints crack; maybe you
like that. But did I say you’re allowed to enjoy it yet? Pull up a sleeve. Show me the inside of
your arm where the skin is softer, the hairs grow in finer and the visible veins watch you
back. Blood vessels are a dichotomy of kinks, you know. Venous, arterial. I am still deciding
on yours. The arterial sensibility: reoxygenated, assertive, active, progressive, optimistic. The
venous: nostalgic, tired, wavelike, fighting against gravity and inertia, a little homesick and
full of longing. I can make do with either, but I think that flight of colour from your cheeks
just betrayed you. This is going to be a lesson in boundaries. You’re human, so of course you
have issues. Some of you more than others. There’s your skin – it looks inevitably
membranous, lid-like enough. Now with the fingernail of your other hand – or someone
else’s, don’t make me do it for you – I want you to draw. Scratch a line from the middle of the
forearm to the inside of the elbow. A line like a vein returns to the heart, nostalgic for
oxygen. Hard enough that you can feel the cells clump under the nail, but not so hard it
makes you gasp. Not yet. Now watch it. Did I say you could look away? I want you to tell me
everything. First it goes white. A little sediment dislodged by the nail, a fine powder of skin
cells. Or maybe a line never appears in the wake of your nail; maybe it bloomed and then
fizzed out like a contrail in a blue sky. But for you – yes you with the boundary issue – I
know you saw it, are seeing it still. How long did it take for the line to get excited, blush pink,
then red, then pucker up over the surface, pushing its shape into the air like that, like it loved
it, like it doesn’t know about discretion, about shame? It’s okay – I want you to enjoy it. Now
we are going to see how long it lasts. Ten seconds, thirty, a minute – the longer the scratch
gleams red, the better. At least for the purpose of our exercise. Maybe now you’re beginning
to wonder why? It would be more understandable if the line turned red from a cat scratch, a
dog bite, a nettle sting, or if you’d dipped your fingernails in something irritating. But no – it
would appear that this allergy response – if we can call it that – is provoked by the closed
circuit of your own touch. Now we are getting down to it. We can talk about allergies, or we
can talk about boundaries, the suggestibility of matter, the body as a baroque edifice, a
bricolaged environment of ancient cells and newborn plastics. In dermatographia – skin
writing – the world engraves itself on your body. Your flesh is the thirsty page and the ink is
histamine, flushed from mast cells at the hint of a touch. I see you’re getting excited now,
curious. Do you find it hot to make yourself bloom like that? Supreme sensitivity. I know you
like it when I talk about the intricacy of matter, about the total promiscuity of cellular life,
how it got under and into your skin. How the mast cells are the most ancient part of the
immune system, a primordial fossil from half a billion years ago. Those histamine-flushing
cells that make your skin turn scarlet were doing so long before humans existed. They
weren’t exactly organisms unto themselves – like your mitochondria that swam freely in
ancient waters before rooting into your cells – but they had other things to take care of. They
poised in ancestors of sharks and hagfish, waiting to engulf any pathogens that came their
way. Then they got used to engulfing, and by the time you came along, they’d become
stubborn, fixated on a role already mostly outdated. The rest of your immune system evolved
around them, regarding the mast cells as antiquated – a touching reminder of simpler times.
Look – they’re blushing again. Is it really surprising that cells know when we are talking
about them? The mast cells are just hungry to engulf, hungry to be useful. You should admire

their appetite. In you who are dermatographically blessed, the mast cells are exquisitely
subtle. Or maybe they’re addicted. Anything can trigger them to rush up to the surface – a
touch, a whiff of perfume, a squeeze of lemon. Hives bloom all over you like jewels, your
pulse races, you are too exhilarated to sleep. Fog rolls over your thoughts like a cloud of
unknowing. Do you like how it makes you feel special? I know you do. Good. I know you’re
itching to scratch again but I won’t let you just yet. We can do it all over again, but different
this time, if you’d like that. Okay. Now you’re no longer human but a beautiful starfish larva.
Soft and diaphanous; clear, glittering flesh in place of muscles, sinew and bone. Mobile cells
move through you like wandering stars. You’re my favourite specimen, making shapes while
I watch through the eye of my microscope to make sure you’re being good. I know you like
me looking like that. What else? Do you like it when I set the scene? It’s 1881, not far from
Christmas. I’m the father of immunology Élie Metchnikoff. I’ve been studying you for a
while, but for some reason, on this particular afternoon, I have a new idea for something we
can try together. Maybe it’s the season, maybe it’s because all my family are out at the circus
watching performing apes, so we are finally alone. I think about your flesh, transparent as
water. It makes me shiver all over. Suddenly I know what to do. I go out into the garden and
over to my wife’s bed of roses. I pluck half a dozen thorns – she won’t miss them. By the
time I get back to you you’re trembling. I know – you’re being so patient, so well-behaved.
It’s almost time to reward you. Now. Take a deep breath and hold still. This might hurt a little
or it might not – after all you have no blood vessels, no nervous system. Either way I want
you to take it. Slowly, I push the rose thorn into your side. Breath out as you feel its tip pierce
the delicate membrane. Good, keep breathing. Now take it as I push harder, until your flesh
engulfs the rest of it. Don’t struggle. There. Good. And now I’m going to leave the thorn
there until I say so. I’m going to go to bed, although I’m so excited it will be difficult to
sleep. And when I come back in the morning I expect you to still be here, taking it. I’m going
to watch and I’m going to make notes. I’m going to describe what I’m seeing: the wandering
cells of your body swarming around the thorn, eating away at the troubled tissue. Is that you
enjoying it, contracting around the entry point, tasting its bite? The difference between
penetration and circlusion; in the former I break into you, but in the latter you pull and tighten
yourself around me. Circlusion makes you gasp, makes your mouth water. The problem is
that no one will believe me, and I need them to. So I spin a different story. I tell everyone that
the roses were incidental – of course there was nothing romantic about it. I christen your cells
phagocytes, devourers of cells. I say that you were trying to defend yourself. I become the
father of the immune system, and I explain that it’s all about attack and defense. The
boundaries are perfectly clear – no issues. It’s absurd to think it might be more complicated.
What? Don’t look at me like that. Aren’t you proud to be part of the story, just by being
good? Think of all the lives we’ll save by understanding that we are under attack. I don’t care
if you felt otherwise. We’re done here. Progress is arterial; there’s no point being maudlin and
venous about it. So go back to being yourself, to touching yourself like an allergen just to feel
something. I’m busy. The world already writes on your skin like it’s obsessed with you. So
what do you need me for?

Note: italicised descriptions of arterial and venous blood are adapted from Mary Ruefle’s Madness, Rack and
Honey: Collected Lectures (2012)