Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.
Previously…
Lefty pushed Kelly to make a plan for her life, and the conversation exposed how frightened and stuck they both were. When he came home expecting her to be gone, he instead saw her work assembled for the first time and finally understood its power. A single sale at a Venice art festival sealed an unspoken pact between them.
The following text is transposed directly from the journals of Kelly Ann Mudd. There are fifty-three volumes in the collection that was donated to MoMA by her estate.
June 1, 1987
I still feel bad. I’m tired of feeling bad. Yesterday I wrote a note and everything. I put it in this stupid notebook the school counselor gave me, but this morning I read it and it was just so terrible I ripped it out. My life sucks, but I don’t want that whiny thing to be the last thing I leave behind. So I guess I’m journaling to come up with a better suicide note. Ha ha.
The thing is, I kind of hate writing. It feels like school which I also hate. So I’m sure my drawings will probably take over here like they do everywhere else. But I’ll try not to. The counselor said I should write in it like I was writing to somebody I love and who loves me. Yeah, right. That’s not going to happen unless it’s fiction. But I’m okay with fiction I guess. Who can say what’s real anyway? Who gets to decide? The best conversations I’ve had are when I’m by myself. I know I’m a freak. Who knows, maybe this little journal will turn into an amazing comic book about that sad freak girl who offed herself! That would be the most boring comic ever. So fucking cliche. I’d rather live and be a weirdo than be so pathetically conventional.
I’m going to make something really cool because fuck the world. Fuck the world the way it is with guys who don’t see you at all or just creep on you. And then there’s the girls, my kind, I guess? I have more in common with Mr. Boggs, my cat, than I do with those bland, bitchy piranhas. That’s what they are, swimming around in schools, looking for the next person to devour. Then they all grow up, the girls and the boys and become step monsters but I’m not going to go there. This is for me. This is going to be the beginning of my story the way it’s supposed to be. I’m going to be out of here one day and none of this will have mattered because none of it ever happened. That’s the power of art. You can change things to be the way they should be.
June 3, 1987
Last night I stared into the mirror above the sink for so long. I did that bloody Mary thing we used to dare each other with as kids, the one where you’re supposed to stare into a mirror and say her name three times and then she appears. It was kind of scary actually, gave me goosebumps and I felt silly. She didn’t show up, (duh!) but I kept staring and after a while, it felt like I pushed through into another dimension. It’s like when you stare at something so long without blinking how it turns inside out, transforms into something else. The same thing happens when you say the same word over and over again. There’s something about patterns and repetition that’s so cool. It reminds me of the way a chicken can be hypnotized if you draw a line over and over in the dirt in front of them. I saw it happen with my friend Maisy. She lived on a little farm and her dad was so cool, a total weirdo but so nice. He talked to their chickens all the time like they could understand him. I thought the stick thing was a trick only he could do, but he showed me how to do it and it worked. If a chicken brain can be fooled, I’m pretty sure a human brain can be too. I think a lot of adults never stop staring at the stick!
I’ve started drawing patterns. Yesterday I filled up three pages in my sketchbook. It felt kind of amazing. I didn’t think about anything else for over five hours. My neck got so sunburned though. Next time I need to find a shady spot.
Something was happening while I was drawing and I’m not sure I can really explain it. There was this feeling of opening up or pushing through or something. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Like the more I drew, the deeper I went. The more I used what I was seeing around me and wrapped those things in the twisty patterns I was drawing, the more that opening feeling happened. It was trippy, like when you’re first falling asleep but you don’t know you’re falling asleep. You’re thinking crazy thoughts but they seem totally normal. Anyway, it was like that and then I was just inside and when I was inside, there was this really clear voice.
No, that sounds fucked up, even for me. It wasn’t a voice but it was something and it was “speaking” to me, guiding my pen pens (I actually went through two of them). I’m aware I sound like a total freak but I’ve decided that here I will write about my real life not my pretend life. Otherwise, what’s the point?
I’m going to give the voice a name because it’s better than just saying ‘it’. Names are hard. I hate my name so I get why she resists a name. She resists having a gender or really any kind of label. She’s bigger than all that but I have to call her something because naming stuff makes it easier. The down side is that labeling her puts her in a box and she has to be like everything else in this stupid conventional world. For now I’m going to call her Ona.
What Ona does while I draw is she sits with me. She doesn’t exactly tell me what to draw and she doesn’t judge. She asks questions. Now I’m making her sound like that dude on channel 13 with the afro who talks to the trees he’s scraping out with that little knife thingy. She’s cooler than that, but also kind like that guy. If she had a voice it would be kind of whispery like how he talks. The longer I sit and draw, the more clear her voice gets. The more I listen to her, the better I draw. It can feel strange and sometimes I want to resist, like if I don’t, she’ll just take over and then it won’t be me anymore deciding things.
Yesterday when I was at BeansTalk, this dude came in. He was big and gross and had these shifty eyes. He sat at the table across from me and pretended to read the Highlander Rocket. Nobody reads that shit because it’s mostly ads but they’re free and they’re always there in the wire rack by the front door. Anyway, he was really just checking out Meg, who was working behind the counter. She’s so cool and beautiful and kind. I’m glad I’m not beautiful like that. You’re like a creep magnet if you are. Anyway, Ona said I should draw him, incorporate him into what I was drawing. I ignored her but she kept nudging me and then I said fuck it and drew this big blob shape like to say, “Happy now? We just ruined this.” But then she kept asking me more questions and I started refining the blob and he turned into a big toad with a slimy tongue and his shifty eyes were looking at a dragonfly that landed at the center of the page where I was working on this cool labyrinth design. I just kept drawing the toad, making him more and more real and gross. I used the cross-hatch shading technique Ms. Barnes taught me last year. I felt this giddy kind of feeling, like this tingly surge of power like being plugged into a socket. The big creepy fuck started shifting around on his chair like he was sitting on a grill that was heating up.
Before I could finish the dragonfly, he got up and left. It was because of me and Ona. We did that. I watched Meg’s face after the door closed behind him. She looked like a thousand times more relaxed and she didn’t mess up making change for customers like she had while the eye of Sauran shitball was there gobbling her up with his shifty eyes.
June 4, 1987
What a random day. Like, totally random. So I was almost in a movie, no big. I’m just sitting in Beanstalk doing my thing and these two women come in. They’ve been shooting this big Hollywood movie here for months and everybody in town has been talking about it forever and practically knifing each other to be in it. You should hear mom and captain combover talk about it all the time. I could give two shits but they offered me $400 for just one day!
Turns out it was a scam to get stupid local girls to be naked and play cowboys and indians. I wasn’t going to do that shit. Anyway, this rando guy gave me a ride back into town. He’s not really rando though. I know who he is. You can’t live in this little butt-lick of a town and not have heard of Lefty Moody. He was going to be a big deal baseball player but now he lives with his parents. How sad is that? Total golden boy loses his crown. Anyway, he did the weirdest thing. He wanted to see my sketchbook. I don’t let anyone look at it but when he asked, I was just so surprised, I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. He didn’t just flip through it though, he really looked at every drawing, like he was really into it. My stomach was filled with butterflies which made me feel kind of gross but it wasn’t like that, like I was into him. It was more like I was just excited about somebody seeing what I do. When he handed it back to me I think he was crying! Like actual tears! I’ve never made anybody cry. He seemed a little freaked out about it too because he got all like, “how about those Braves!?” and practically shoved me out of his truck.
So it was a weird day. But I’m serious when I say Ona is a powerful friend. None of this would have happened if she wasn’t with me. All I want to do is draw and she’s got so many ideas. They’re always weird and totally out there, but when I go with them it’s the most amazing feeling. I want to get a bigger sketchpad so I can spread out, give us more room to work. I hate asking CC for money. Let’s be clear, I never ask him. I ask my mom and she asks him and he always makes a fucking ceremony out of giving it to me. Another year and I’ll be old enough to live on my own. I know I need to get a job. It’s not worth it, asking him, feeling even more owned by him. I’m going to stop there. Ona says he feeds off my energy.
August 21, 1987
It’s been so long since I’ve written in this journal but a lot’s happened. I’ve not been allowed any freedom at all. I’m not going to write the gory details because this is my story and I can tell it the way I want to. All I’ll say is things happened. It was so bad this time and I couldn’t deal. I tried to find Ona but she was quiet. I guess it was too much for her too.
The place where they put me was worse than hell. I fought it for a while but then I realized unless I told them what they wanted to hear, I was going to be stuck in there forever. It’s better to be here in this prison of my mom and CC than there. At least here I can draw and go out in the yard. I can avoid CC because he avoids me now. When I do have to be around him, I just stare at him and the longer I stare, the squirmier he gets. I think he knows I want him to die and that just makes him more Mr. Rogers. More sickeningly sweet and “helpful.” My stupid mom just eats that shit up like it’s pie.
But it’s okay because I know I’m going to get out. I’m going to draw my way out of this fucking maze. It’s been a couple of months since I tried to draw and I was scared I forgot how. But today I started again and almost immediately the pain in my gut went away, that feeling like a rusty knife is twisting in there stopped. But Ona was silent. I don’t know where she’s gone. Maybe she won’t come back. Maybe the meds they put me on put her to sleep.
I’ve decided I won’t let them win though. I won’t let their story be my story. I will be great one day. I will have a life I love and they won’t be a part of it. I don’t know why I know this, but I do. I feel it.
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“In the collection that was donated to MOMA by her estate”! What a beginning. At at once, tell us so much and leaves us with so many questions.
Oh, and Ona is brilliant too.
Can’t wait till next week.
Looooooooove this sooooooo much. And way to up the intrigue with the MOMA note at the top! I so enjoyed this deeper look into Kelly’s inner world and how she develops, from suicidal to “being great someday.” Such a true portrayal of those angsty years.