The first photo is the instant of change when things had gone awry but were about to be beautiful.

It’s the night of Snuff Party. Drill Hall is packed. Glowing projections move over every surface. Giant puppets and Skullies have been roaming, interacting with the crowd, appearing and then disappearing quickly.

We’re behind a curtain in the dark. I’m sitting in the wheelchair that Ed spent days making bone-y. Skip is my power assist, wearing their beautiful moth creation, ready with reins of bones around their thorax. I can barely see them. Beneath a giant gold crown, I’m wearing a Skullie puppet.

It’s our cue to emerge. Skullies trail after me from behind the curtain. We are visibly downcast and un-enthused, kind of together, but apart. We begin to wind our way into the crowd.

A column of bright spotlight from the ceiling snaps on. The moth is panicked. There’s a commotion as it pulls back and forth on the reins and then it leaps out of them toward the light. The Skullies look up, disrupted. Some Skullies go after it as it flies away. Some are skuttling over to inspect the dropped reins. I’m gesturing to the empty space for power-assist and the moth in despair.

The moth is drawn to the light. The Skullies investigate what it is fussing over. Then over the heads of the crowd, they lift up a crown. Another spotlight snaps on as the first turns off. The moth leads the Skullies. Another light, another crown. The moth is flying freely now. Every Skullie has a crown, and they show me excitedly.

At this stage in the story, everyone is rejoicing. We’re parading through the crowd, back to being cheeky together, showing off the newly acquired Disabled Knowledge that we now all have.

One of my Skullie pals gestures, offering the role of communal power-assist to a random person in the crowd. This next bit isn’t planned.

The person in the crowd pulls the rope of bones over their shoulders. They take-off with me behind them. The Skullies are left behind in a second as I’m jerked forward at speed.

I can’t see where I’m going, I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t say anything without breaking the performance. The music is so loud that no one would hear me if I tried. I’m trying to slow down by grabbing the wheels with my bone-y fingers. It’s only seconds but it goes in nightmare-slow time as my mind races. I throw my hand up in front of me.

This photo shows this actual moment. Someone told me what happened afterwards, with a tear in their eye because of the allegory. The crowd saw my frantic stop signal. In unison, around 10 people in the crowd shouted: STOP!

My voice was amplified by the people paying attention. I was sure as shit heard. Apparently that enthusiastic audience member was very apologetic and immediately handed the power-assist bone-reins back over. We continued our joyous parade.

Snuff Labb was such a formative experience. It made me realise that people can let you have agency when they want to. The next morning I quit a role that I had been trying to make wheelchair accessible for myself for months.

The crown Colleen made me is up on my wall to remind me of that time.

Last week we had a chat, and Snuff said they’d be honoured to let me share this linocut print with you as part of my top-surgery-repair fundraiser.

It’s to honour Skullie Parade and the hope it gave me.

But it’s also for venues with an actual wheelchair accessible f*cking bathroom.