When I was fifteen, I bought a book about Camille Claudel from Everything’s-a-Dollar. With tax, it actually cost $1.96, which seemed like false advertising. Books from that store were always a risk, but I was always willing to take risks on books. This one paid off.

I became obsessed. Obsessed with Camille’s exhausted and knowing face staring at me from the cover. Obsessed with the sparse, direct prose translated from French. Obsessed with her lack of recognition, the injustice of it—even though it was the very reason I could afford the book. 

I carried the book with me everywhere. If it had been small enough, I would have put it in a locket to wear next to my heart. As it was not so small, I had to settle for my backpack, and someone stole it from me one day during study hall. I could only hope the thief needed Camille’s story too, that they weren’t just another pair of hungry eyes bent on devouring her bare bodies of stone.

Bereft, I carved Camille into my mind and carried her with me as a memory, a guidepost. 

She lived with her hands in the mud. A sculptor. Chiseling men of fame buried her under the weight of their renown. Locked her in obscurity. In a room. At a hospital. An asylum. 

They said: She is hysterical and not to be credited. Cassandra. Camille. An old story. Going on. They profited by mocking her prophecies, selling her finished works while scolding her muddy hands. Dear girl, such a mess.

They patted her head, while she screamed.

I can still hear her. Recognized or unrecognized, she was and remains. I can hear her wailing when I am afraid even to speak, afraid to put my hands in the mud. 

I hear her, and the sound of her shouting through walls and years spurs my courage. Let me not lock the door of my own cell. I will live with my hands in the mud. There is such a mess to be made.

S Maxfield is genderqueer, bi+, and disabled writer, with roots in dance and theater. S/he has a short story featured in the anthology WE MOSTLY COME OUT AT NIGHT (Running Press, 2024), and their flash fiction has been published by Black Fox Literary Magazine, Open OK State, Voyage YA/Uncharted, and WinC Magazine. Maxfield’s debut comics collection ASSORTED SWEETS sold out at the legendary NYC comic shop Forbidden Planet, after successfully funding through Kickstarter. S grew up in a log cabin, but has spent the past two decades in NYC, where s/he reads tarot and far too many books for the size of the apartment they share with an equally bibliophilic family. Find out more at linktr.ee/essmaxfield.