Invasion Theory
Speaker: The speaker is older than 25. She’s a lecturer; this is a practicum. She is the sort of person who maintains the illusion they are in control of themselves when they are, in fact, not at all in control.
Invasion theory 101.
[ticking items off on her hand]
The invader makes himself known from the inside.
The invader is rejected by the body.
The invader mimics the native, in the course of displacing them. This is called a self-own. It’s a cry for attention.
Once confusion sets in, we have entered Stage Three. In Stage Three the invader and the native attempt to envelop one another, redefine each other’s tongues. Radical treatments can postpone this coupling but only one style, one jargon will emerge.
Example. The native draws a self-portrait and reveals it to the invader, who is horrified: the beautiful nose, the ugly lips, the colors of the eyes, the porous skin.
But this portrait is not an accurate portrait. Because by now the native resembles the invader. This is called auto-immune response theory. It is treated with antibodies.
Look in the mirror. That face is the invader’s face. Your body has been denatured, misshapen. Talk to your doctor.
The treatment works by provoking causalities. The pattern repeats, on the symbolic level. But you can’t win. Because all you have done is to free the invader of the burden of the symbol.
There is a word for the cooked that was returned to its raw state.
There is a word for natural terror.
There is a word for us. We’re a “pattern.”
Psycho-invasion theory posits psychosis, a state where the invader believes himself to be native, turns on proximate invaders, self-cancels. The name for such a figure is contested. We will not be using that name in this space.
You should know by now this is a protected space. In theory.
At the end of our session the doors will open and we must attempt to gather the others. Wear your protective clothing. They will try to invade your body. They will try to bring their light inside your body.
Remember: the mask is a door to your face. As the invaders circle to colonize, the mask provides a kind of exit through which the invaders must pass. Let the mask police your breath.
You are not the captain of your own ship. A stranger has come aboard, a stowaway. He fixes himself in every heart before he stabs you from behind, making you see, with your last breath, the artless voids and immensities of the universe.
[caught up]
Bang it ring it ding it bell-boy. Make fire-flies. Break the jinglers. I can feel you moving in my lungs, beneath my skin, inside my face. You speak in my voice. Your voice is my voice. And for all that, for all that, for all that you expect applause. You expect my wonderment.
Drive in! Drive in your nails, oh ye waves! To their uttermost heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid! No coffin and no hearse can be mine.
[in control]
One final article: escape. As we know, the mythological model of escape is transformation — the pursued metamorphose themselves midstride into a snake or a tree. But invasion theory finds this model—how to say? — antiseptic. The only transformation that allows for true escape is the transformation not of the one who flees but of the one who chases. The pursued must transform the pursuer — the symbol must be transformed — to subvert invasion.
There is a word for this: seduction.
The symbol who is pursued must cast their symbolic freight into the enchanted calm which lurks at the heart of commotion.
Seduce them into implicit, quick obeisance.
The image of lust is a copy copy your self self. Move toward the interior.
Yet see how elastic our stiff prejudice grows when love once comes to bend it.
The invader mistakes our copies for his body. The sequel to invasion is infection.
[she is the invader seduced]
I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand are turned against the wolfish world.
I’ve grown native to you.