This art featured in my memoir, Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness is included as a moment of serenity between chapters and does not necessarily have any literal connection to the story.
Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness Excerpt Chapter #23 The Veils Reveal What Is Concealed
It is said that Halloween is when the veil between worlds is thinnest. That Halloween I dressed as a woman from India, veils concealing my body and face. A darkness I had not seen before was revealed.
There was a party in the house where I had a bedroom in the attic. My father had a room on the second floor. Everyone else in the house was close to my age, and they thought my father was cool and entertaining. He would have made a great charismatic cult leader if he could have managed his anger long enough to gain loyal followers. Many saw his ability to always be the center of attention as strength; I saw it as insecurity. That Halloween, my father was dressed in only a white cloth folded like a diaper, and he drank his beer out of a baby bottle. Everyone was dancing, and my father came toward me dancing in a lewd manner. He had never done this before. I was disgusted and moved away from him quickly, leaving the room. Never wanting to see my father as perverse, I thought perhaps he did not recognize me under the veils I was wearing. I was so upset by his inappropriate display of sexual interest in me, his daughter, that I went upstairs to my attic bedroom.
Clare Cooley
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