Original

Asphalt at any speed hurts. At thirty miles an hour, the grating sensation against your knees, palm, cheek, seems all too dull at first, until tiny springs of blood begin to pepper your skin, blooming red and bright against ashen flesh. Your heart stops, your breath stops, your legs move. Nothing seems to hit you until you find yourself gasping in front of a dirty gas station mirror, alone, thinking, “Is this what I must pay to be someone else?” Even at twelve, I knew that I wanted to make my lesser self disappear, to vanish behind a swishing cape, or down a rabbit hole, or behind a red curtain, only to emerge once again, to the audience’s surprise, entirely anew. I wanted to be a pioneer heading west, following the light of the sun to escape the Old World. I yearned to be Old Man Kangaroo, to be made different from all other animals by five this afternoon! I needed to be Lady McBeth, Sylvia Plath, and Tinkerbelle, too. Theatre was, essentially, the better half of my life. Day to day I simply existed, but on stage I truly lived. Waving goodbye to the messy divorce, physical education, and every sixth grader who mocked my glasses, I entered the building, ready to grow.

My mother eventually tired of my acting. It was quite expensive, and was turning me into an excellent liar. After throwing myself out of her car and sprinting the rest of the distance to clean myself off, I entered my new scene-building workshop, and sustained myself with the steady drip of make-believe I had forced into my veins. The teacher looked a bit like Robin Williams, only slightly more grey and sad. He was well versed in Stanislavski, Meisner, Adler, Hagen, Strasberg. His skin was puffy, presumably from wine, his eyes yellow, his complexion wan. A startled look crossed his face, as my mother’s figure appeared in the doorway.“Ma’m, you can’t just…take her,” Williams stammered. I assured him with my eyes that I would be alright just before vanishing around the corner.

It was the last time I heard my feet moving hurriedly above the black, dull, floor of a stage, felt hundreds of eyes on my trembling lips as they delivered a monologue, a poem, a line, or turned my body to the side, my senses in tune to the sets and figures around me, even in the moments of blackness before the curtains rose. I was bluntly thrown into a life lacking the art of pretending, a life short of surprises and wonder. The only characteristics I was left with were my own. There was no cast of friends surrounding me, no notebook full of the perfect words to utter in precisely the right moment. I could not remember the last time I had been truly left alone with myself, and I was utterly petrified.

With only myself behind the curtain, I feel my life is incomplete. I have always slipped into someone else’s thoughts, and it has always been acceptable. My first director, Stephanie, did not agree with me. “ Darling,” she tells me, “you came into your life just the way you are. Always have been, and always will be, an original.” With all of my heart, I wish I knew the girl standing in front of that dingy reflective surface, soaking through paper towel after paper towel with crimson stains. For now, all I can do is pass her another, and pray that she will not stay in that bathroom forever. She belongs center stage; she just has not found herself yet.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.