Live Art Speed Date

This evening I partook in the revelry that is a large scale Live Art Speed Date - meaning - several artists imparting 4 minute long one-on-one experiences on drinking audience members. Much like an actual speed date, but with art.

My piece consisted of me and a stranger typing to each other in person in the middle of a busy room. It created a nice quiet space for the two of us, because of the human obsession with reading, writing and computer screens, which it turns out can kind of drown out anything else. Below is one of my favourite and most unexpected chats of the night. The audience member's responses are in bold. I saved the conversation as...

The Eternally Youthful Man

Why hello. Do you come here often?

I wish I did.

And why's that?

I grew up here, It was during the war, We didn't have much, but we were happy.

Which war is that?

The first world war of course.

Are you a ghost? A typing ghost?

No, but since….. since it happened, I've never grown older.

Ah I see. How did you not grow older?

There was something in the canister. We didn't want to touch it, but she told me to, and I couldn't resist. everyone else died instantly. I was the only survivor.

Who was she?

I don't know exactly. She only came out at night. We saw glimpses of her sometimes, flitting throughout the shadows.

Wow. What did she look like?

Very young. But something different. She obviously came from another time.\\

Are you tired of being young?

It is a curse. But of course, normally it is a debt, which must be repaid with old age. Hell is an eternity of anything.

Gee!