If This Was Who I Was Supposed To Be, I Didn't Know How To Do It

[A Shadow's Dream -film by Jeff Scher]

"Ta-da," she said. And there I was, blinking in the light.
She'd given me a crew cut. The sides were so short my scalp shone through, and the top was a single bristly shelf. Seeing my own face under that haircut, I got my first good look at myself from the outside. I had ears that were small and stingy, curled up on themselves. I had narrow glittering eyes, and a big nose that split at the tip, as if it were meant to be two smaller noses. Those features as had always seemed inevitable. Now I saw how particular they were. Seeing my face in the harsh light, backed by white tiles, I might have been a relative called in to identify a body. If we have spirits that fly out when the system shuts down, this may be how we see our own vacated selves--with the same interest and horror we bring to an accident victim.
-Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World.