RUBY
The jack-in the box. Just what happens when you are in the box. As goes along it tries to change but gets blacker and blacker, all horrible. It has never seen anything like it before, that’s it. That’s a person who thinks naturally then thinks of something else, blinded. Those are bandages over its eyes. This is what it thinks. White part is the good part, it floats away, does not like the black. Mindless people, they are not mad, just negative, don’t think or do anything. They see all this, they get the horrors and die. They are all moving, the blind one sees again, kills all of the black and things. White is all right. Jack –in-the-box trying to get out, this gate stops him. The whole thing is obscene, evil people, evil thoughts.
I started off being frightened. I hate anything violent in these. It became all right when I invented the bird, a sort of hangover. I wanted to get rid of all the red things, but I don’t know if I have done that. These get overhot, they have to explode. These are people. This is underground. The roots are frightened. Half of them get away, but when above ground they are no use. These are the faces, they see what is happening, they turn back, escape but they die. It trembles and the white bird flies away. It sees that if it does not like it, all this will be destroyed. It is wounded, it falls to the ground and dies. The ghost of the bird goes on losing its feathers helped by an aircraft. It flies away. It is only a machine now, can’t feel or think, goes away forever.
( Horrible creepy shapes. There is a mask and there are a number of eyes. The yellow square is a lighted window. He is outside where it is dark. There are eyes looking at him everywhere from the darkness. In the darkness he sees the horrid shapes of crawling things. At the same time the darkness is alive with sex. This is shown by the red of sex. From outside where it is so dark and horrible, he looks in through the window, into the lives of other people, where it is bright and happy: but it is guarded by three bold crosses which show that this is not for him). You can’t go in there. You pass lighted windows at night and the people seem happy. I suppose they are not really happy. The crosses are to keep you out. The crosses turn into people. All things like creeping insects and animals. Not real animals, but they keep you out. This is a long lizard snake thing. More eyes. That’s a person that isn’t really a person. Eyes. A ghost.
Don’t know what it is. That is night. As a child, used to go to walk at night. Now hear thumps. Don’t like it. There is someone there, but I know there isn’t. Frightened to go to bed. Not frightened of the other. Don’t know. It’s all imagination. Was only about three or four when this happened, this awful fear of men. Liked men that did the gardening or men that resented me. It is the bird, the claws of the bird. The monster all red. The door. The monster wanted to get to the door. Why should the red lead to the door, that is wrong. Started this scratching and digging into myself again, but can’t. It seems to be put on, but why? Just got to. Is that me? Or something else, or something imaginary? (What do you think?) It must be me. (It’s pointing to the door. The red is the way to the door?) Yes. It should stay shut. (But the red is all orderly) But it is still red. Don’t know why this rude comes. (Is it really rude?) In other people it is acceptable. Used to think a lot of sexual things, don’t so much now. (Tell me) Each figure. It’s a man. Felt I had to destroy something. Felt elated as I burned those things. I wanted to be a man. Now I don’t.
It doesn’t mean anything. That is a bird an that is a hand. Hand is pointing towards the gates. Railway gates. Don’t think I have ever been there. Accident. Have the feeling I was there when I was very little. Forgot all about it. That is the moon. Don’t know what the other thing is. Used to look at the moon a lot. Used to think that things must be better up there. I had never heard of mad people before, and one still, eerie night with a full moon, a man started making weird noises like a wolf. People explained that it was a lunatic, and that the moon had sent him off. Everyone was terrified. (The hand is pointing through the gate to the moon?) I thought it meant that you should not go through the gate. (But it is pointing through the gate) Yes. No. (There has been an accident at the gate) Got into my head that I was there, but I wasn’t. (Would it refer to some other thing?) Don’t know.
(There is a head in which the piercing eyes are the conspicuous feature. From the head comes a black rod which ends in a black mass surrounded by red. The piercing eyes are leering with sex. The head is surrounded with the white hair of the old man. The black rod, surrounded with red sex, is the organ with which he soiled him. It’s wet, it’s slippery, it’s hateful, it’s slimy.) He is there. The old man. He is there. Sort of hangover from when I was a kid. Sort of an idea that there was a lunatic somewhere. It made men frightening. An old man in a room which was like a picture. He was in bed. Suddenly he sat up. His face was surrounded by masses of white hair. He leapt out of the room. He was like a fire-ball, coming closer and closer. He was like the devil, and was coming toward me. Then he changed, and I saw that he was not angry anymore. He was mad, and he had been startled and frightened by something. The red disappeared. His eyes were bright and very large.
All this red comes out of its head, gets up there and explodes. Then it sees people. Those are people as they appear outwardly. When it sees people, it falls away back to its rat-hole. That’s where it lives. That’s a house. Those are doorknobs. They can see, they pry, they are disapproving, they are only interested because it’s bad. The sun shines there on the right, but it is blot out on the other side. Those are people, keep red and black in place. They are normal people, the black was depression. In spite of their purity they pry and question. That’d me I suppose because I called it Ruby. Ruby is me. When I get stuck I talk to myself. I just use that name, it’s a name I hate. The empty box is its head. I always wanted to be a girl then I felt it was wrong. When I was little, I saw the differences between me and little girls. I have always wanted to be a girl. I hated boys’ clothes. I think people look at me because they think I am immoral.
These people started off pointing at that person so I chained up their hands, so they could not point. I suppose he was a bad person. Dead people. The person was blue, then I changed it, then I put red over it. The red was locked up by this great door on him. Then it got out. (On his body there is a door. The red sex should be kept in by this door, but it has burst forth. People are pointing at him. To try to stop them he has put chains on their hands, but it is of no avail. The few careless curves which outline the grotesque figure express the full pathos of his concept of himself. He is so misshapen as to be hardly human. His face has no features at all. There is nothing for him to see with, and nothing to hear with. He has no mouth that would let him talk to his fellows. The swollen belly, the amorphous legs give the impression of some horrid jellyfish in the shape of a man, and over all is the fire of red sex which burns his body. Over it all is written: Going away Tomorrow day Now not where But I’ll get there).