Thou masquerade: a performance of a lifetime

This story contains mentions of physical and sexual violence, if said content is triggering or you do not wish to engage in it then please read another wonderful piece on this site instead. Reader discretion is advised.

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To act is my only birthright; an instinct given to but creatures such as myself to survive.

A gift anointed to I through hardships remains all of my power dote. An ability to shapeshift held in my measly palm. 

May I need to camouflage from the eyes of predators can I then contort to something more desirable to what I can offer. My soul traded for a malleable shell.

It had made home in me at the ripe age of eight, my parents: lions, pride and ferocious dignity held closer than I. Had been hunting the prey out of the deer of myself, stalking my fearful in anticipating hunger, should they see coward in me would they pounce and tear at my meat with disgust. Without a conscious thought it was then that I had distorted my earliest beast, a lion, significantly smaller and lesser however enough to be respected as something to neglect. 

At that moment did I first understand the pride that my parents had valued so highly than myself, an overzealous will of strength that only a monstrosity alike my own could take delight in, that was, of course, until the withdrawal had hit. 

Such sorrows of an abysmal inferiority an unbearable punishment to what I had done, an atonement like no other would claw at me, the talons of lions ripping through me with such gluttonous hopelessness. 

Thus began my pursuit of such high once more, in desperation of escaping the so righteous phantoms.

It had not occurred to me that such profound desires were to be abnormal, nor was I in any urgency to dissipate from my amalgamation. 

The other children would avoid me. They feared me I suppose: all rabbits, cats, mice - the lot of them. I felt proud to be on my own, a Goliath among my peers I stood superior for the first time in my miserable little world. Even teachers seemed wary of my presence, often would they be less than subtly ushering the other youth away from my direction, sparing glances and hushed gossip among themselves. They were all serpants. 

There was one nice professor however; the school’s receptionist. A sweet old dear, hard of hearing and tired as one can be but truly passionate, her work was heart and soul. They would often times hurry me into their office during break hours and allow me to read to them, other times I would draw as we would share stories like two friends. I didn’t consider her a friend at that time: too embarrassed and overtook of an obsessive shame to understand how much she had helped me.

That was until she retired - Around the time of my second transformation.

I had been bundled in my misery, sulking behind a corner of the school losing myself in a self-piteous slump. That would be when a little girl had came to me, maybe a year younger than I: standing eleven years at this time. She had seen me pouting as she was playing with her friends before deciding to talk to me on a whim. They had tried to convince her against it, however she was stubbornly persistent in her innocent desires.

She had took my hand that day, hers that soft and clamy every child seems to be. She had led me to her friends, them begrudgingly tolerating my tantrums as I joined their game: jump rope they were playing, I was frustratingly horrific at it however none of the girls seemed to mind, not that they would have said anything at the least. They asked for my name and gave theirs in exchange, that besides I didn’t talk a lot, the others too busy chatting away about their insignificant classroom affairs and obnoxiously arranging playdates.

The second change took place approximately two months after this had transpired.

As it turned out, the sprightly girl that had spoken to me, Mary was her name. Had been new to the school, her parents recently moving for the benefit of her fathers new job. She had confided in me of her fear for her father, albeit never explicitly giving reasons as to why, I wouldn’t find out until years later when I would see her fathers name in the news ’Sentenced to four years in jail for sexual misconduct’.

I had a friend of my age, someone of whom I could play with without them being forced to. It was wonderful, that was until one fateful day of course; how could it be anything otherwise. One fateful day when she had mindlessly asked me a question, I remember not what it was anymore, only that it had seemingly been too much for a prideful creature as such myself. I had immediately bristled and sprung forth, claws latching in her neatly combed tresses. The rest was a daze of crimson fury, only had I came to when I was wrestled away. The girl was bloodied what would seemingly be beyond the capability that of a child. She was wailing in pain as her pretty coral pinafore was now seeping with sickening cherries and scarlets.

I was dragged kicking and screaming to the principle, my once golden fur now a jet black with the rotten wickedness of a black bear. My parents were called to fetch me, there it was decided that I would be unfit for school and that it would be mandatory that I would need to be homeschooled.

Of course there was I disciplined for such violence and thus started my for the most part uneventful path of education.

In the next set of years leading onwards to my adulthood I would then begin manipulating my body for it’s optimal use. A misuse beyond the standard of sanctity.

Need I swoon a teacher I should become an owl: alert and airy in nature, able to ruffle my feathers to their wants until they decided what would be satisfactory. When I would be needing to charm my parents of my reformation, a fox sly, birthed of a convincing malice would slink and prowl among them with a mischievous marmalade glee.

Never once had I felt human, for a feral beast was all I knew - my body a growing wildfire, a master of my craft a part of me could still feel pride of my primal counterpart of which I had originally held.

After I had left schooling I had no desire to follow under someone else, no, I was above that. I wished to be seen for all my glory, a peacock of grace and a regal pompous, deep plumbs, marine, and magenta. With the hypnotic tail of any an actor did I form quite a crowd, and in time had I trotted into a life on the stage.

Performance arts was my life’s calling.

And as such limelight may hit form, hereby I don anew, a self created of not flesh nor bone, instead of porcelain and glass, might I be able to assemble a mirror of my flesh so you can look at your favourite show.

So I shall bare a mask and veil self for success, for the consumers would be the ones to stand the main attractions, should you wish upon your lucky stars that you may satisfy the mob, a beast of its own right. 

And as I shall frolick, may I look a yonder upon the onlookers I would see an even greater spectacle. Might I be a performer alas but these decomposers are finest at acting: a cloak of a person without the gratification of a vessel to insincere. Our relation is extravagantly taut. Connected to the hip we stay, darlings of show-business: we exist to oppose one another. 

Must our work bring prosperity, a lucrative feast upon the stage; they ought-to ravage with tremendous uproar of pleasure and intoxication. To satisfy such greedy demand remains an inconceivable feat, for once you feed its hunger an addict it will become. Such likely I suffocate under the dastardly weight of its consumption do I only have us to blame for the savage we have created of song and dance; for the Devil was the original performer, us marionettes in its will.

And as they will howl encore while the spotlight ignites me, may I now bare the chains of regret amongst the immodest of the stage and shall my day of judgement finally relinquish a punishment for my sins. I have been condemned to the cage of its entertainment and as such I am naught.

All of what I am is the call from the crowd, my worth a dime too heavy for my hands to hold. And as such Icarus flew too close to the sun did I rise to far too the stars, set aflame by the balls of gas in the cosmos, and as such I burn alive then will the celestials once more claim such a gift and curse in which I had obtained. 

All has returned to their correct places: my correct place enraptured on the stage.