Chasing Ghosts

There was always a desire common to all humans, serial killers and philanthropists, angels and demons, careerists and unambitious drones. Common to crazy and unpredictable people as to those boring and dull, shared between floating dreamers and realists, convinced of the correctness of their decisions. Do animals share same desire we will never know, as humans have never and will never know how to communicate with animals, no matter how convinced they are of animals’ similarity with human reasoning. People tend to project their own values ​​onto all other species. Aliens, according to human reasoning, have similar aspirations and way of life as people, they sleep and produce, they want to express themselves, they want to be loved, they can be spiteful as humans. They might be nice and willing to help us, or evil and greedy and want to destroy and eat us, or to destroy us and claim our planet to themselves. Sometimes, according to movies, aliens could be sensitive, loving, even have similar sense of humor as humans do. And know how to steal or how to seduce. The funny thing in this logic is that it’s a human logic, not alien logic, and not animal logic. This is what psychologists call “projection.” This happens when you project your own feelings onto other person or entity, and think that’s what he or it feels about you. The man is the most egocentric being in entire animal kingdom. Even the most devoted philanthropist, the biggest victim or martyr, is more egocentric than any animals, even those humans deemed as “selfish”, such as cats. Cats are probably just honest. You keep them as a pet in your world and they just take advantage of situation the best they can, get fat and sleep in the warm, embracing a new way of life. Wherever you put a cat, she seemed to think “meh, I can live like that and be happy.” Or is it again, a “projection”? Most people can’t relax and enjoy the moment, their goal is always “out there”, somewhere far away where it needs to be chased but never caught. And when we die, that’s the end of the search.

I am adapting and transforming my whole life, I’m a woman, so it’s expected from me. The man doesn’t have to adapt or change, he is always acceptable, no matter what. Man never changes his way of life, because life and surroundings have to adjust to him and not vice versa. If by any circumstance man would be forced to change his way of life, then he would suffer. He is not like domesticated cat, he doesn’t want to surrender and calmly accept change, perhaps even some kind of captivity, as something from which he can have benefit and joy. Like a cat. No, he would spend most of his time complaining about the conditions that he could change, but he will not. Because, in fact, everyone prefers to be a victim rather than hangman. That way you are martyr, and sweetheart, and therefor you’re always right. The most important thing is to be right.

Society seeks perfection from women, contrasts, simultaneous opposites that are impossible to achieve, like to be sexy and passionate, but also modest and affectionate, to be expensive and bitchy, but also modest, cuddly and kind, angry and bossy, but also gentle, sweet and obedient. Dumb pretty dolls, but also intelligent, witty and emotional, when it’s “appropriate”. Society seeks impossible from us, and we are chasing that impossible goal whole our lives.

I have this special gift that I was born looking quite bland with endless possibilities of transformation. My hair is grayish brown, my skin is pale, face mousy, with tiny and fragile, almost invisible features. My body is like clay, you can mold it into whatever you want. I am lucky, being born as a woman, to have a gift to become anyone.

I started as a modest, quiet high school student, then a few years later, a college student, shy, introverted, and smart, well-read and interesting when you get to know me. The problem was that nobody wanted to get to know me. No one really likes introverted people, they are too much work, they need to be chased, need to be pulled out of their shells. You have to be persistent with them, and to have infinite confidence and patience. And even if someone is attracted to such qualities, that would be a person who likes challenges and who will, once introvert is somewhat open and available, get bored, and immediately start looking for a new challenge. People perceive shyness as a personal insult. They will not believe that it is your nature, they think introvert has something personal against them, because basically, every man is self-centered and thinks that everything revolves around him. It’s hard to be alone in this world. So, first I changed was my appearance, inside and out.

I became what you see on covers of magazines, for men or for women. That is particularly funny fact. The world is dominated by men, but on all magazine covers, billboards, posters and television, all over Internet, everywhere are photos and pictures of women. You will hardly ever see a man, especially in magazines aimed at women. This indicates the mistaken idea that women rule the world, but in fact it just means that women are decoration. Men are not decoration, they have substance, and do not need to have an attractive façade, if they don’t want to. Women are decorations and need to be pretty.

Based on this knowledge, I retreated to my home, and started working on becoming a decoration. When you have the body and face of clay and dull, colorless hair, with a natural gift to completely transform your appearance, this was easy. From my mousy phases I had no friends, because no one has bothered to know me, new identity was easy to obtain. Nobody missed me as I was before. I am shaping my legs to be long and slim, shaping my breast until they are grotesquely large, narrowing my waist, and making my ass look like a giant absurd double hemispherical mass of what is now considered attractive. MY hair becomes fiery red, face radiant and expressive. Just a few weeks later, since I have the gift of transformation, I am a front-page bombshell. This experience was not at all what I expected it to be. Women despised me. Men masturbated over my photos, staring at me when I walk down the street, saying things like “I would do her”, “sexy mama” or bizarre: “here comes mother of my children!“. Snotty teenagers and adults look at me with obvious lust, dream about me just because I bring out everything animalistic and essential in them, and I mean absolutely nothing more than that to anyone. They want me because I attract them sexually, but in real world, they wouldn’t know what to do with me. Finally, once again no one approaches me, ever. I’m just a bait for the rich mobsters who want trophies, as a mean to show everyone that they are rich. Because what kind of a rich man you are if your woman is ugly? You can easily be poor then.

Again, I didn’t find what I want, what we all seek.

The next phase was “freak”. My body covers with tattoos, along my left am wraps up pink lily, and on the right arm dolphin is jumping out of the water. Around my waist and on the back is beautiful large dragon tattoo. His tail is winding down over and around my thighs. This is my masterpiece, woven into it is exactly five hundred colors and shades. I worked on it to be so realistic that you’d want to remove it from my body and hang on the wall as decoration. On my left ear, along the cartilage, I have a series of engraved silver loops, and through the last one on the lobe passes silver chain and leads to a clip which pierces the nipple of left breast. On the back, right along the dragon’s spine, I have three-dimensional “tattoos”, so that ends of dragon’s small and useless wings emerge from my body in the form of metal spikes. Every day I add something new to my body, and I enjoy it. I’m interesting. My clothes are interesting, my body is a work of art. I am talking nonsense, but interesting and funny nonsense. I drink too much, take drugs to dim the mental and physical pain. I carry with me a box with set of razors, pull some out when I need an audience, and then I cut herself. I can do it. People don’t know that, but my body heals and never leaves any scars, not even the smallest traces of mutilation or injuries. If I want to, in few weeks I can look completely different, and all my scars will heal and disappear. It’s easy to impress people with self-mutilation, because most secretly love to watch body being mutilated. People are secretly impressed by freaks but will never, ever admit it. They don’t know I can regenerate, so they are impressed by my seemingly irreversible self-mutilations. They look at me as some miracle, fascinated. They look at my wounds and secretly enjoy every new in-depth self-mutilation, every new spike, sharpened tooth, cuts, dazzling new tattoos in a prominent place. I could pour gasoline over me and set it on fire, they would still be fascinated. I’m surrounded by fascination, watching me with greed and the desire to get more. I’m a show, a circus, I am not even a human anymore rather than performance, only to watch for perverse enjoyment. Then I got bored. After a few weeks working on a new transformation, I am unrecognizable again.

After that followed series of further changes that changed my identity and looks, some were successful, some not. I was “pixie dream girl”, then punk girl, then heavy metal girl, hippie, militant, aggressive woman, an intellectual, even homeless .. searching for a place to fit in, I made a number of variations in physical and psychological terms. The longest of my phases was perfect wife, perfect mother and housewife, beautiful and educated just enough, not too much, not too little. I was the essence of average, balance and golden middle, as much as it was in my power to achieve it. Almost immediately at the beginning of this phase I got married. Quickly I realized I made a mistake because with two small children, you cannot just get away from your identity. My husband was a good man, according to most social standards. Proud of his little family, for his fine and modest wife, he was hard-working and willing to support us, me and children. It was clear that he was proud of his typical and highly coveted role in society. Although this sounds like an ideal fate for any woman, after a few years I began to feel like a fashion accessory for ideal marriage. I managed to stay at that phase just enough for my two daughters to grow up to early teens and begin manifesting the same, inherited power of transformation. From then on, it was increasingly difficult to monitor their development and numerous changes. I know I’ll lose them one day, and they will lose me, but it’s a burden female offspring of my family carry for centuries. I was the first that started really late, in late puberty. Others would start very early, which is why our breed lasted so long, especially in times that were particularly unfavorable to women. Further transformations went on, one after the other, but the inevitable burden of aging has begun to endanger them. The problem with aging is that it reduces choices of transformation. You can no longer be anything and anyone. Even those like me cannot hide my age. Not even the best plastic surgery, the best plastic surgeon or dermatologist, can’t hide maturity, in terms of lack of fresh complexion and lack of sparkle in eyes. Transformation can’t do it either.

Then I was a plastic doll that refuses to grow old, regular client of cosmetic surgery. I was elderly, good-looking lady in the prime of life, with reading glasses and all. I was cougar, refined and well-read, expensive and dressed in couture, sly and cunning seductress. Old age was catching up on me narrowing my options faster and faster. Finally, my options remained only as few and were so similar that it was no use to even bother. At that moment, I do not care, as I’m finally aware that as all my ancestors, my whole life I was chasing a ghost.

But let’s get back to the beginning of our story, to the question of what is common to all humans. The answer is: All people want to be loved. By all means possible, even wrong ones. Murderers kill in order to be noticed and to stand out from the crowd, so that media and public “love” them, to have followers, fans, acolytes, no matter how disturbed. Careerists who seemingly gave up family, partners, children, sometimes even sex, in fact, are also chasing love. They want audience, they want protégé, followers, readers, apprentices, students, deputies, people who will love them, at least through admiration and ambition. People who give up everything to help the victims, for charities... they also want to be loved. You know that. And you know as well as I know at the end of all my transformations that eventually, no one finds what he wants. And in that moment when you realize that, you’ve already spent my whole life chasing a ghost.