When Jerry Scanned Liza’s Barcode

Jerry sees Liza walking down the street. He observes her frilly dress, with the bouncing lace, and her light pink fingernails, which delicately caress her purse strap. She has a wisp of a smile as she squints her eyes in the sparkling sunlight. Her eyes look hazel from his perspective, and they are surrounded by a rich hedge of long lashes. Neatly embedded in the center of her forehead is a camera lens. She makes an autonomous statement by drawing mandala inspired flower around it.

Immediately, Jerry withdraws his smart phone, opens the camera app, and zooms in on her wrist, where her barcode is-- where everyone's barcode is. The phone takes a snapshot, and on his screen it says: DOWNLOAD VIDEO. Jerry eagerly agrees by pressing his finger against the on-screen button. A green light flashes, signaling his phone is ready to expose Liza, a new world. Liza glances over at her new, future “expert” with disdain.

Jerry takes time off work. He stays up all night the first night, watching the footage. He sees her early memories from her view point. Liza’s mother’s footage is also imported in to show some of the same events from the mother’s view point. The father’s footage comes, along with a best friend’s from childhood. Even some ex-boyfriends have some of their Liza featured footage complied in. Jerry watches everything, her first step, the highlights of her first day of school, the first time she bled, and when the moving truck came to Uniontown. Jerry observes the highlights of her first date, first kiss, and breakup. He watches a clip of her first job and another of her interviewing for her current job. He sees her write in her diary about the miserable world on a pivotal night of maturing, and Jerry idealized her internalized words into the vision he had of her; it was the vision he had the moment he saw her little, lacy dress. He conforms everything into his vision, honing facts to spin them into a veil to make a pleasant truth.

After watching 36 hours of Liza, Jerry sees the most recent moments. She is single. He sees how she couldn’t look her ex in the eye when saying goodbye. She says said goodbye because he forgot her birthday and ignored her phone calls that week. It was like when her father didn’t give her a birthday card on her ninth birthday. Her father was always a disappointment. Liza’s ex is exactly like her father. The ex-boyfriend mentions this, too. He tells Liza why she is feeling the way she is feeling. Liza screams that knowing isn’t understanding. She cries no matter what is exposed in technology's eye, nothing can capture what can be seen means in her soul.

Jerry hears her say the words knowing isn’t understanding. Their meaning does not penetrate his mind.

Jerry believes he knows Liza completely-- even her own interpretation of herself. Her own emotional definitions fade and become mute to the knowledge of the “facts” that Jerry gleans.

To him, the mystery of woman vanishes. She wants attention because of her childhood, and she is afraid of commitment because no one had ever made a commitment to her. She enjoys attention. When she says, “Leave me alone,” it’s only because she’s on her period. She doesn’t want to be alone. When she says she isn’t hungry, she wants a compliment about her figure. If Liza says “I’m fine,” she isn’t fine. If she’s mad at a boyfriend, it’s because she doubts herself. She draws that flower on her forehead every day to be noticed.

However, Jerry is wrong.

He pompously sits in his chair with his greasy hair, undressing the woman he sees in the footage inside his mind. He silences her voice with his knowledge, just as women have been silenced by “experts” for generations. The women molested under Victorian dresses by doctors to cure hysterics, the women locked into asylums for postpartum depression, and the women hidden for baby bumps were all told how to be and who to be by men with knowledge. Jerry may have “facts,” but he still does not know the woman he watches. He only knows the woman he hallucinates when watching her life.

But, Jerry knows he’s in love. He knows her truly. He plans to send her his video. He hopes to propose on the first date.