OK, I finished translating it. of course I want people to give my input on it, even that I already turned it in. here goes. Oh and disregard any grammatical mistakes... english is not my first language.
I was twenty-one when I pierced my ears. I had gone to my niece's baptism the week before and noticed that the baby already had her ears pierced. All through the ceremony I stared at the ears of all the ladies and girls, but, to my amazement, I saw that I was the only woman without earrings. it wasn't the first time that I saw myself in that situation at a party, so I decided to pierce my ears soon.
I went to a little studio, the "Tattoo Cathedral". The body artist, Virgílio, was a scary creature, he had a hole wider that a centimeter in his right ear and his body covered in tattos. We talked a bit about the procedure, then he took out a small plastic pistol and pieced my ears, it didn't hurt a thing. The next day, I bought seven pairs of earrings. I started using them every day, proudly. All my friends from college said that I had good taste and asked where I had bought them, what made me very satisfied.
One day, on the bus, I sat next to a girl with many piercings ion her face, but without any sense of aesthetics, It was a horrid thing to look at!I wanted to talk to her, tell her that she should use her jewels to be more pretty, rather thanusing them as means rebelliosness, of intergration, or for passive agressiveness to her parents. I wanted to give her some suggestions butthe bus was so loud that the conversation would only be a bunch of unpleasant screams. That night, I dreamed that I had that gorç in front of me and I was pulling and putting her piercings as if I was arranging magnets on my refrigerator door. At the end of the reorganization, she was the most powerful person in the world. I woke up and got suddenly fascinated with the concept of piercing as a form of art. The fascination soon became a primal urge. I got in a wave os self-mutilation.
I went to Virgílio's the next morning, and pierced my left eyebrow and booked sessions to pierce my left nostril and upper lip. I became a regular costumer. I had long conversations with him and , ocasionnaly, helped the happy teenagers who got in there: "Dont do that, pierce this instead!"; "but your nose is alredy so nice!"; "use this piercing, it prettier". And Virgílio always agreed on everything.
I started doing surface piercings, I got a vertical bridge on the forehead and three rings on each wrist. It was all organically harmonious. All the metal, created an aura of well-being around me.
Some time after that, when the wounds were practically healed, I woke up sweating in the middle of the night; I ran to the mirrorto see if I had pulled any piercing during my sleep, but that wasn't the problem: They were all into place, but I felt a void, a need. It was the first time in many days that I didn't smile at myself in the mirror, I seemed to have lost my pride. I went back to bed but couldn't sleep, I couldn't find the origin of that imbalance. I got up and started moving the furniture, but the neighbour from beneath came upstairs, knocked and yelled for me to stop. I went back to bed.
The following days were very hard: I saw my reflection in the mirror and cried, I'd spend my time changing my piercings, added holes to my ears with a sewing needle, then regretted it and let them close. I had nothing else to pierce. What ever energy it was that made me happy in the begining, it was lost. I stopped going to calss, couldn't risk passing by Virgílio's studio; pulled the phone cord and turned the cellphone off in an attempt to study (the exams would come soon), but I couldn't. I shivered all over, turn on the TV, turn it off, open the fridge, nothing to eat, went back to the books, then came back to see if there was something in the fridge.
One night, very late, I was staring unconsciently at the television, and the film Un Chien Andalou was on, and the momentthat the woman's eye is slit by the shaving razor, there was an electric discharge on my body and sparks flew out of all of my jewels. I ran to the mirror and, using my fingers, opened my lrft eye wide, I had an epiphany. How couldn't I see it before?! It's my favourite organ, the one that allows me to see the world, the only sense that I hadn't pierced yet, it even was the last touch on the dream girl! That was the cause of my urge, my left eye, virgin.
Virgílio panicked when I told him about my revelationand promtly refused to do it. I was surprised with his reaction at the time and, in my state, yelled at him a bunch of insultsand his twon clients waiting left the studio. He calmly closed the door, turned the sign to "closed", headed slowly toward me, grabbed my arms and screamed: "You're bloody crazy, do you hear me?! I can't pierce your eyeball, it's impossible! Just look at you, go home and sleep, I'll pay for the taxi.". He let me go, grabbed the phone and started dialling a number, I pulled off his hands and and smashed it into a glass piercing displaying case, that shattered. In the confusion, I managed to take a tinyplatinum ring without him seeing and ran out of there. He didn't follow.
When I got home, I went to the bathroom, filled the sink with ice, desinfected a needle (the same one I usewd to further pierce my ears) and the piercing, prepared gaze and physiological serum, took my glasses out and clamped my hair way back.
Looking at the mirror, I turned my head slightly to the left to expose the white bit of my left eye and approached the needle. Stuck the needle. The pain came instantly, poured blood tear and god knows what other fluids, I started crying but had to keep my hand firmly; I couldn't pull the needle out becaue my eyelid insisted on closing. I tried to hold it with my right hand, but it would always slip; I scratched in with my nails and it started bleeding too, but to the eye itself, I did my best to minimize harm. I proceded with the perfuration, the tip of the needle advanec through the fibres of tissue untill I felt it exiting the eye again, four milimeters ahead, a little white-ish fluied splattered ou. The pain got worse, I screamed again and fell on my knees, laid my face on the sink. I left the needle for a few seconds and poured some of the serum to wash the blood off, carefully widened the wound trying not to make the tissue collapse and pull the needle transversally. Picked the ring up, and started to drive one of the ends through the hole with shaky hands. When the end came out in the other side, I took out the needle and rested a bit, then continued to drive the ring round, and gently screwed in the tiny sphere.The pain was unbearable, the tiny ring felt like it weighed two kilos. I washed the eyeball again with physiological serum, got up, screaming my heart out, and made the biggest effort ever to open my eyes. I saw the bus girl in the mirror. Lost my senses and fell.
