*nay - The story of what’s in your pockets.

I’m a thief. In crowded subways and bars, I bump against people and
pull objects from their pockets. I steal. I take what belongs to
somebody else. I keep for myself what is of value, the rest I burn to
stay warm. It is a strange kind of feeling, I must admit.
My apartment used to be a place for storing paper before it burned
down. The walls smell of mildew, they are brown with blisters on them,
like the skin of a leprous man. My place has no windows, I live in a
chamber isolated from existence, I lock myself away from the world in
order to try and remember it better. When I come home from “work”, I
prepare my opium pipe and sit down on a cushion on the floor, close to
the oven, and wonder for hours what could have been been written on
the thousands of sheets of paper that used to be stored within these
walls, wonder what hands are soothingly turning their pages this very
moment, right now.
I don’t live life as it happens. I live the memories of the day during
the night. I don’t sleep, you see, I have been awake as long as I can
remember. It’s actually really easy not to sleep. All you need is a
room without a window. Life becomes an eternal wake.
I have principles. Not the same as you, of course, otherwise I
wouldn’t be out there trying to rob you of your possessions. I never
look at who I am stealing from. Never at their face. Theft is visible
to the human eye, not the action, not the process, but the state.
Today, I stole from a woman. It was snowing, and she had curly hair. I
could smell the perfume on her skin as I drew close to her, she was
wearing an orange raincoat. Her back was turned toward me, she was
reading a poetry book, standing by the subway doors. Her bag was open,
different items were leading a vibrant, colorful existence in there.

Her wallet - a sudden halt - my wallet. I get off at the next stop.
A strange feeling, holding something that, a moment ago, was not mine.
Like making love to someone for the first time. Touch, full of careful
unfamiliarity, feeling one’s way in the dark. A strange object in my
pocket, I dare not look at it yet - I can still feel it’s reluctance
about being with me. I lock away the memory of this moment until I get
home.

Back in my hole, I take it out in the dark. In my hands, I hold the
life of a woman. It is strange with women, their wallets always
contain so much more than money. It seems as if every woman, were she
to die, would take out her wallet in the last moments, and look at
it’s contents to reminisce her life.
That’s what I do when I get home. I open books of life, pour out their
contents onto bright light, expose them nakedly and read them. Then I
burn them, like all the sheets of paper that have burned down in these
rooms many years ago. It is an experience more personal than a rape,
more satisfying. I inspect everything, to the furthest detail, I
penetrate and I make up stories for each piece.

This one wallet contains no money. There are a few coins, and a blue
Lapis stone carved into the shape of a fish. A talisman of some sort,
given to the woman by her mother at an airport, when they separated
without knowing when they will see each other again.
A scrap of paper, torn of from a photocopy, with hand writing. It says
“The Famous MA|HI Gutschein Heft - you have a wish just tick a box and
it will come true”, followed by “wish 1″, “wish 2″, and “wish 3″ and
their respective tick boxes. This is a lover’s gift drenched in youth.
She has filled it out. Respectively, the wishes say: “Make me cry”,
“Make me laugh”, and “Then make love to me”.
An MTA Metro Card – Airtrain JFK, expired 05/31/06. Subject to
applicable tariffs and conditions of use. I imagine her on her way to
the airport, dressed up to pick up someone she has missed. The edges
look evened out, I can almost see her playing with them, folding them
nervously as she waits before a door for love to arrive. The flight is
an hour delayed.
Photographs. Some are very old – there is one in black and white, of a
little boy feeding a swan with grapes. The swan is almost as big as
the little boy, who is clearly intimidated. Pictures of her
grandparents, her mother, her lover, a woman standing by the shore.
Pictures of four friends stuffed in a photo booth, of five friends in
a green garden.
An autumn leaf. Crumbled and broken, she picked it out of her hair on
an evening after a September afternoon which she spent making love on
a blanket in the woods.
A note. “Call Assistant Director Adam (310) 753.5372 to confirm
coming. Au Bar, on 58th between Madison & Park Avenue, 12-7pm.”
A ticket to the Louvre. She walked the marble halls by herself, in
endless wonder, she stood before the Mona Lisa and exchanged glances
with the old man guarding it and all the wondrous faces standing
opposite. Happiness in Paris, to her, meant solitude. She knew none of
it as she left early in the morning, on an airplane in tears, for
home.
A ticket to the Albertina. She stood by the window, watching the snow
fall gently upon Vienna’s rooftops like cherry blossom petals,
realizing the value of a friend.
A stain of blood. From all the times she almost died.

No, nothing of monetary value to be found in here. I take another puff
from my opium pipe and feel as if I have just eaten a person alive.
The world is beautifully quiet as I throw all objects into the fire,
freeing their memory from substance, making them truly eternal. Smoke
rises into the ventilation shaft, and I drift quietly away into a
peaceful sleep.