She is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I have seen everything. I want to tell her, but when I do, she stops speaking to me for weeks, months, even years before. Just an object on the wall, easily ignored.

So I lie. I tell her, when she asks me, that there is one more beautiful than her.

"Who?"

"The girl who plays, just out there, orphaned and left in your care."

"Impossible! She is a child."

"A child once, but now grown, and so grew a beauty of her own."

She storms from the room. I don't know what she'll do, but this was longer than our past conversations.

~*~

It's three days since, and here she is before me, holding something red and wet and squishy. I don't want to know, but I know. I don't want to tell her, but I want to talk to her, and she calls out to me.

"Do you know what this is? It's her heart. Now who is fairest?"

"She is fairest, as before. What you hold came from a boar."

She growls, and I try to think of what to say to keep her with me.

"Where is she?"

"Deep in the woods, a home she's found, with little men from underground."

"I'll find her," she spits out before leaving once more.

I am worried for her, but I feel needed. It's a good feeling.

~*~

It's only been a day, and she is down here, but not to talk with me. She is back with her poisons and potions, concoctions and decoctions, alembic and mortar and pestle.

"What plan do you have in your head? I suspect you wish to make one dead."

"You know who I want dead. There's only one before me. Tell me, would she want meat or fruit?" She holds out a bit of jerky and an apple.

"She's friend to the beasts of wood and field. The latter, your desired result would yield."

"Good, good. And now, since she won't trust my face, a change is in order."

She drinks down a potion and crumples to the ground. At first, I fear she confused the vials. Then I realize it is far worse. The hag before me is hideous. All her beauty has been inverted. She cackles and leaves me, alone with my guilt.

I am waiting her for her return, knowing I will never see her the same. Blinded by my love of a pretty face, I allowed an ugly heart to grow. I can't blame her. I was the guardian of her self love. I was a receptacle to store away her doubts. Now, I am the instigator of her great evil.

I close myself off, shut off my senses. I cannot watch her kill a child. I cannot face her when she returns. From here, I am only a mirror, showing people nothing more than who they are.

The following transcripts were compiled from voice messages left on the employee services line for Callisto Research Base 115.

​

2399-08-11T13:44:05.890981Z

Hello, this is Thomas Lee calling from lab 507B. I am currently experiencing a problem with the trash bin; it keeps repeating the message "please clear the trash receptacle" even though the bin is empty. Please call back or send a tech. My employee number is E9910394, my desk phone is 78-234-200-3198. Thank you.

​

2399-08-11T14:02:12:091383Z

Hello, this is Thomas Lee from 507B again. The employee services line webpage says your hours of operation are from 6am to 10pm so I'm not sure why you're not getting back to me. I'm still experiencing trouble with the trash bin, which is repeatedly telling me to "please clear the trash receptacle" despite being empty.

I'm going head to the cafeteria for another strawberry-banana smoothie; if you could get a tech down here while I'm out that would be just super. Again, you can reach me at 78-234-200-3198. Thanks.

​

2399-08-11T14:11:54.324882Z

Hi. This is Tom. Are you guys even in the office today? The trash can has been telling me to "please clear the trash receptacle" every five seconds for the last half hour. I need someone to fix this; it's seriously affecting my ability to get work done.

​

2399-08-11T14:38:33.002741Z

Please clear the trash receptacle.

Please clear the trash receptacle.

Please clear the trash receptacle.

See how annoying this is?

Please clear the trash receptacle.

Please clear the trash receptacle.

Puh-lee-ease clear the trash receptacle.

This is the employee services line. I'm an employee. I need services. It's been, like, an hour at this point. Please get back to me.

​

2399-08-11T14:52:02.091244Z

Hi there. Tom from 507B here. Am I going insane? I walked my ass all the way down to the employee services center and the door was locked and the lights are out. I need services. I need someone to fix my stupid trash can. Is anyone home? Or am I the only person on this stupid moon?

I'm gonna lose it. If I hear the phrase "please clear the trash receptacle" one more time I'm stepping out of the airlock in my underwear. And yes, please do report me to mental health services for that threat. Tom out.

​

2399-08-11T15:32:49.328813Z

Hello, this is Thomas Lee. I left a few messages on the employee services line earlier and I'd like to report that they can be disregarded. I was having a problem with the trash receptacle in my lab but it turns out there was just strawberry-banana smoothie spilled on the sensor; it's working fine now.

By the way, I heard around the water cooler that you guys were going to be out from one to four today for Sheryl's back-to-Earth goodbye party. Hope that was fun!

Please do not report me to mental health services.

That's all.

Again, this was Thomas Lee, employee E9910394. Thank you.

##Modern Liszt

"Are you going to go out there?" His voice doesn't conceal the demanding nature of the question.

"I will. I just need a few moments." I take several deep breaths before opening the door.

The screams increase until they are all I can hear. The team of body guards can barely keep them away from me. I take two steps backwards out of fear of getting trampled. My manager pushes me.

"Don't be scared, go!" he says. I walk forward through the crowd; the arena entrance is thirty feet away. My head is yanked to the side. Feeling my head, pieces of hair fall out.

"I got it! I got it!" Someone screams. A few people dive at the ground to grab follicles. Multiple hands reach through my bodyguards and feel my body. I begin to weep, and fans hold out their hands to collect my tears. They don't see me as a person; they see me as a receptacle for their love and desire. I am a canvas to project their dreams of a perfect romantic partner.

One scratches my face. When I turn, I see the rage on his face. That's how it always ends with them. Reality is disappointing compared to fantasy. Rather than accept this fact, they grow angry and abuse the disappointment before them. It's strange how I cannot tell the difference between their love and hatred.

When I reach the door, I feel relief. The bodyguards push it shut behind me as a few try to shove their face in for one last look. I am guided to my make-up where I collapse. Closing my eyes, I wish for it all to be over as I enjoy the few moments of solitude.

There's a loud crash behind me. When I turn around, a fan is crawling through the broken glass. Blood spills from her whole body. When she sees me, she flashes a disturbingly large smile. Pushing off the ground, she runs towards me at an inhumane speed.

A bodyguard tackles her before she can get me. Two wrestle to get a hold of her while another two stand in front of the broken window. She shakes her arm at me in attempt to touch me, but all she does fling her blood onto me. When I look back to the mirror, my body takes over. If I am going to survive, I can no longer be present. My only hiding place is inside of me, and I will stay there for the rest of my life.

r/AstroRideWrites

The Expectation Complex

I'm better than them. They are weighted by their doubts, like anchors to the bottom of the sea. I have no doubts, for I've seen the surface of the Universe and understand the purest meaning of life. It speaks to me in ways they couldn't possibly conceive, in a language foreign to their virgin ears.

I expect to be the best at whatever I do. If I'm not the best, then I suspect that with practice I will be. I'm extraordinary, not ordinary. To be not best is to conclude that I'm not free, that I need them. I cannot need them, for that would imply that they need me. This is the definition of whole-life-imprisonment.

I should be free.

How should I expect to know the right way to live if I cannot act on my own impulses? I did not choose them, they chose me. It is easy to conclude that I should act upon them, otherwise, why do they exist? Freedom is existence, and I exist, so should be free. Therefore, I should be the best.

If I am insufficient, clearly not the best, then I must practice with rigor until I am. To do otherwise is to choose imprisonment. And if in such practice, I find other expectations that must be met, then I must meet those as well. So forth all the way down to the smallest expectation which I can definitely meet, moving up to the harder ones.

This is why I write 20,000 words every day. I'm not the best writer, and until I am I cannot be free. So I spend every moment from when I awake until when I sleep writing.

In the name of freedom.

Sunrise. Just get to another sunrise. It is the only time I am myself. Exhaustion punishes me as I place one foot in front of the other and rise from my bed. You can do this. My reflection looks back at me, skepticism scrawled all over the features of the woman in the mirror. Who was she? I could have sworn I knew her once, yet the old lady looking back at me was not the idealist, social work major fresh from an evening of partying with her friends, all of us convinced we’d save the world. No, the woman looking back at me was set for a day of Linkedin corporate training webinars, looking through resumes of the recently graduated hopefuls, and starting correspondence with “I hope this email finds you well.”

Nothing ever found me well.

At sunrise I was still me. I was not a corporate stooge. I was not a mother of children who only ate half their lunches and came home “starving” from school. At sunrise there was still a chance that this day would be different.

It never was.

It never would be.

It would end the same way all the others did, with me crawling into bed, painted in layers upon layers of expectations. I would drown in all their expectations one day. Pour into me all your concerns, memos, blame for cutting your sandwich the wrong way, guilt for not earning enough, being educated enough, savvy enough to navigate this world I never asked for. Be the receptacle for all their dreams and agendas. What was that? You are tired? Why not just get more sleep? Ha!

Nose to the grindstone. The American dream will be yours one day. One day the sun will rise and you will bloom into who you should have been all along. You’ve only been playing a character so far. This can’t be your life. This can’t be my life.

I want to go home.

The world will keep turning without you. Who needs you? No one. This sunrise isn’t for you. Blink and you can be replaced. No one would miss you.

Footsteps in the hallway feel like weights settling around my feet, dragging me under. The sun was risen and it was time to start another day.

“Mama?” A small voice and its small little arms wrap around me. One more day. He brings me out of my room. I can do this. One of his small steps at time. I can do this again.

I would do this again. And again. And again.

But one day, the sunrise would be mine.

It never occurred to me how much it would hurt to not feed. And not the normal type of feeding, I’ve eaten plenty of food.

At some point, I couldn’t hold in my urges much longer, driving me to search out in the city at night. I went my usual route & found myself a sleeping homeless person. I hunched down & gripped their shoulder. I then began to inhale the sweet invisible thick vapor rising from their head. Once I was finished I left as quick as a came. I hope I didn’t take anything too important to them. Even then, I couldn’t careless after getting my fill. I remembered why I do this, what the costs are if I don’t, if I stopped I wouldn’t even be able to remember that I could do this.

[removed]

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