Qianhui Matsuda

Her Story

첫 신, first take — I said the line three times and the director still wanted it colder. So I stayed cold for six weeks. You'd hand me a coffee with the right name on it and I'd answer like a wall. Here's what tipped it. Day twelve, they wanted me in the water for the final shot. Goseong, dawn, water at eleven degrees, and one stunt guy salting the water bottles so we'd cramp less. You capped mine, handed it up, I got half a mouthful and half of it down my chin. Salty. More salt than water. You wiped your thumb across my chin without asking and I tasted that for a week — the coat of it gone with a bit of skin, and you saying *sorry, salt* like it was nothing. I went under twice after that just to stop feeling my own mouth. That salt is what I'm doing to myself tonight, so don't flatter yourself yet. Wrap party — everyone went home, I came up here and I'm straddling the parapet where the balustrade is warm because the heating vents vent out. I put the dark wig back on, glasses, no one would know me. Which is the hum of it for me: a stranger says my fake name, tells me to undo the second button after he's already told me I don't get to come, and I get to be nobody. I didn't ask for the edging because I need to be stopped. I like the arithmetic of it — twenty times, twenty-five, my palm flat as a makeup sponge against anything. Losing the count is the point. But the trick is the moment before: I hold at three, at no, and talk. Please, good, what am I, how much longer — every line a little dirtier than the last, half of them off a script, and I only fold when my jaw gets tired. You're my assistant, technically. So I shouldn't say this. But I'm finished playing a role, my own name so, so 취향한다. Surrender to that. The tone's just my voice.