can intimacy be manufactured?

or is that antithetical to the very idea?

Fiction, 2023

If you’re sentimental (or on the road to Alzheimer’s), you probably have, at some point, kept a diary. For anyone brave enough to record their lives (who says print is dead?), there’s nothing more terrifying than the idea of someone reading what you’ve written—especially if it’s about the snooper in question. Big Swiss is an exploration of this premise on steroids. 

Greta lives in a dilapidated, bee-infested manor with a housemate who is often on weed-fuelled adventures, and a dog with a “rich inner life”. She works in Hudson as a transcriber for a sex therapist who has the worst name for a white man: Om. His clients are wealthy, mildly problematic, and a constant source of entertainment for Greta. One day, Om gets a new patient. Her “issue” is an inability to orgasm, which Om believes is directly connected to a violent experience she had—one that left her with broken bones, a busted face, and a presumably obscene hospital bill. Greta, tucked away in her manor, is immediately infatuated with her voice and story, labelling her “Big Swiss” for the obvious reason that she 1) is from Switzerland and 2) sounds tall.

Fairly quickly, Greta is addicted to Big Swiss, waiting anxiously for the next recording. When her voice isn’t enough, Greta manufactures a meeting between them, which is easy as she knows everything about Big Swiss’ daily routines, not to mention all her thoughts. But Greta toes the line for a little too long, using words that only Big Swiss does, making references Big Swiss made to Om. In Big Swiss’ eyes, this is intimacy. In Greta’s eyes, it’s also intimacy, just an accelerated version. After all, do you think anyone would like you after they heard your therapy sessions?

But the thing about the status quo is that the moment you’ve achieved it, it fades. A series of reality ruptures leave Greta and Big Swiss reeling, culminating in a showdown rivalling Anatomy of a Fall. Read it and cringe.

Song - Shark Smile 

Film - Sibyl