UNDISCLOSED #12 - 28th December 2008

Undisclosed #12 – 28th December 2008
Early morning sometime, I think around 9am.
I am standing in front of the War Memorial.
There is a man made pool in front.
I am walking around this.
I am now at the end facing back towards the huge cenotaph.
I am lying down with my feet facing towards the memorial. I am dressed in a red shirt and red pants. I have a pile of ice cubes to each side, which I pick up and place around my legs.
The cubes are tracing my outline.
A couple are walking in my direction, they are in there mid 50’s.
They look down at me with interest and then look around trying to figure if there is something or someone else around that will give a clue to this. They sort of smile at me but don’t engage.
I am now up to my upper torso. It is pretty swift work.
I am tracing my right arm. It is getting a bit tricky here, but I figure if I trace one arm then remove that arm to trace my other, then I will lie down grappling for the remaining cubes to place around my head.
I have just placed the last of the cubes above my head and I am now settling my arms inside their ice-cube outline.
I am lying in my outline imagining the ice-cubes are melting. I don’t know how long this will take. It is a warm day so I am supposing not too long.
I wonder if I will get told to move on before they are finished melting.
There are a lot more people around now. I hear them and see some of them pass.
Most seem to just look at me quizzically.
I am waiting for a bunch of loud party revellers to stumble across me on their way home but so far so good. It is a tricky thing, you can never be sure which way it could go with them.
It is interesting this early morning crowd have been quite polite, so far. Maybe it is a Sunday thing. Sunday the day of visiting great monuments, gardens, galleries, churches…
I think I must have been here for an hour, I feel very calm amongst the city din.
I can see that the ice-cubes are mostly melted.
I rise and step out of my watery outline.
From my pocket I pull out a tiny needle. I am now pricking each tip of my fingertips on my left hand. I squeeze and encourage a droplet on each tip.
I am bending down and leaning over my outline I imprint each finger on the ground inside my outline to form a half-cup shape in the vicinity of my womb.
I am now repeating this with my right hand. I imprint my fingertips on the ground to complete this cup shape. They look like faint dark blotches. A sort of join the dots.
I am standing at my outlines feet and I take one last look at this trace.
I leave, I am walking away along the avenue with my back to the memorial.
I cannot know what this trace will be by mid afternoon but each cube was infused with a large amount of salt, so in my minds eye I can see a barely perceptible salt stain. A fleeting ghost.