Last week, this huge, pierced septum walked past me as I approached the supermarket. I saw the dreadlocks first, yards of grey, possibly greasy coils, suggesting an older alternative, home-spun- yoghurt sorta guy, not that I generally jump to any nasturtiums. But ya know what I mean, eh? As I parked the car, he walked past again, and I got this sideways look.
Oh my God, wow! My exclamation reverted to a ‘yuck’, and then all of these questions started to pop into my consciousness. This septum was quite amazing. In my mind, I remember something like a wedding ring, but wider, set longways into the septum. Blowing ya nose, I wondered, even picking it? Wow, how would ya stop things flying out sideways, if ya get me drift?
It must have been excruciatingly painful, presenting a huge irritation when it was first done. Practical issues, like being in bed with ya partner – where do ya look? Maybe they both had one, maybe this was an alternative to the more traditional placement of wedding rings?
I saw him again, standing outside the funeral parlour yesterday, just up from the supermarket. He and another guy were smoking. I couldn’t help myself. I pulled over and parked, but he had gone inside before I got to their doorway. His mate laughed at my enquiry. “Johnno, yer, quite a piercing, isn’t it? He’s actually our senior embalmer.”
I was starting to consider a ‘backstory’. I had seen pictures of men from the Sepik District, sporting these overly large perforations. Might my lad have been a missionary, working in a remote corner of PNG? To overcome resistance to the Gospel, or needing to boost his convert quota, had he thrown his septum into the ring?
What would it mean if ya didn’t get your quota. Would that mean expulsion from the Missionary Club? Did it create a thorny problem for their career paths, “… less than 3% conversion reached at last posting. Others have greater claims …” etc, etc. This, and a plethora of other fantasies started to gather.
I wondered if he had ‘other’ piercings! If he and his partner had them, my mind started to race. I had read about scrotum, foreskin and labia modifications! Belly buttons, lips and of course the near-universal lady’s ear jobs.
Then the setting changed, I was back working in Arnhem land, where it was quite de rigour for men to have piercings. Handy for some. I had seen ornamentation, feathers, bones and the like, inserted during ceremonial participation. There was one old bloke I knew, who used to keep his unlit claw pipe tucked into the aperture. Piercing wasn’t universally practised, some did, others didn’t. I wondered if those not pierced were seen as a rogue element of society?
I had personally never been tempted to have a piercing: anywhere – I was Numero Uno on the hemophobia membership list. The thought of all that blood, the viscosity, oozing, scabbing – oh I feel faint, just imaging it.