Summer Blog Episode 4 – I Am A Wallpaper

Year 2000, Kevin Bacon played the character of Hollow Man.  Being invisible, this fictional scientist takes full advantage of his new found ability doing stuffs that he would not be able to do, including spying on his female neighbor.  Rumor says that there is a deleted rape scene too.  The film prompted me to read “The Invisible Man” by H. G. Wells.  Imagine what I would do if I can be invisible.  Imagine what you would do.  That sense of invincibility.  Even if one perishes, no one knows (assuming that invisibility persists through death and beyond, which I recall according to the story, it is not the case).

The opposite of Hollow Man is not any one on the street, I think.  The opposite of being invincibly invisible is being visible but no one takes notice.  Like fading into the background or becoming a piece of everyday wallpaper that no one stops and takes notice.

One day, I went into a restaurant alone.  The staffs were busy doing the things they did.  I chose a seat in the middle of the restaurant.  Still, no one attended to me.  I stood up, picked up a menu nearby, returned to my seat, and started reading.  Quietly contemplated on what my lunch would be, I could not help but to observe that people around me were aware of my presence but liked a piece of wallpaper, I had faded onto the background.  Perhaps when the lunch hour was over, when the rest of the customers had eaten, paid, and gone, the staffs might notice someone siting in the middle of the restaurant reading a menu.  And they might wonder when did I step into the restaurant in the first place.  Or not.

It seems to me that the only time when we get to notice, examine, and appreciate the wallpaper is when the room is empty, newly renovated perhaps.