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She is eating lunch, surrounded by the clamor of boys and girls throwing food and sharing the latest gossip. She’s taken her usual position as window dressing sandwiched between two girls who can’t decide if they love or hate each other. As they hurl insults over her head, she chews on a bland sandwich and covers her feelings with an equally bland smile. As they reach in front of her face to hug each other and apply bits of makeup, she leans back with the same empty smile. Nobody is her friend, but everybody is her acquaintance; when an empty seat at the table brings down the mood, she is called over to fill the space. When jealous children try to show off how many friends they have, she is pulled and tugged on like a little toy doll.
She is finishing the last bit of her lunch, some chips she managed to buy from a local convenience store. The last bit goes down rather mournfully; she is still hungry for something the food cannot give her.
Her eyes stray to a distant table - one that had been at odds with ‘hers’ for some reason she hadn’t cared about or kept up with - and they catch those of a girl in a pretty silver skirt. They’ve never spoken, but she likes to think this girl feels much the same as her. Even from her place across the room, it is clear that they are both quiet little decorations for those around them. Surely if they talked, they would become the most wonderful of friends. Perhaps they would talk one day under the shade of a tree as the sun beat down around them and curtains of light isolated them in their own little world.
Suddenly, she hears her name coming from over the loudspeakers; she is being called to the office. Her face heats up and her eyes lock onto the table as all the eyes that so often swept over her stop and stare . She doesn’t know why she’s being called; as far as she knows, she hasn’t done anything wrong. She says as much to everyone else and her voice, small and flat, turns the eyes away. Without the promise of drama, nobody bothers to watch her walk away. Nobody except for the girl in silver, the girl whose eyes track her to the door. As she walks, her body feels warm and she smiles, because she knows this moment will never be forgotten.
As it turns out, there is a man waiting for her in the office, but not one that she knows. He wears a pristine brown suit with a white dress shirt beneath, along with lace gloves on his hands. But the most striking thing about him is the mask on his face, a gently smiling thing split between red, black, and white. Something about him seems familiar, but she’s sure that they’ve never met.
His head turns toward hers as he stands, and she freezes in the doorway. “Ah, there she is! It’s an honor to meet you.”
The honey in his words brings a smile to her face before she reminds herself that it must be a ploy; she is a nobody, and there is no honor to being in her presence.
“Come now, dear, there’s no need to be shy,” the man chuckles, taking her wrist in his hand and sweeping her into an empty conference room. She eyes the door with some apprehension; just who is this masked man that can pull random students around with nary a word from the staff?
“I am Giovanni di Giorgio da Epsilon,” he says with an eye-catching wave of his hand. “My apologies for pulling you out of lunch unannounced. I had hoped to meet you outside of school, but I couldn’t quite track you down, haha. Shall we talk business?”
She doesn’t like the knowledge in that laugh; it tells her own story in a mirror, the story of a lonely girl ducking into alleyways and vanishing into tunnels at night. Giovanni’s mask leans in and her breath stops.
“I happened upon some of your old work and was quite impressed. Hahaha, it’s rare to see such talent for acting at a young age. Tell me, do you still perform?”
Her mouth opens and closes a few times. “I… I think you have the wrong person. I don’t…”
The words die under his mask’s smirk. “Ahaha, don’t worry, it’s you I’m looking for. Not all acting happens onstage. Just as much acting happens under the stage, on the streets, in school… in every facet of one’s life.”
She squirms in her chair. When she was very young, she’d once slept tucked in the corner of an empty building. When she’d awoken, a circus had sprung up around her. Leashed lions paraded across the floor, rings to later be lit aflame were lifted onto the stage, and performers in strange and beautiful outfits stretched and practiced their routines. She’d crawled under the stage and watched the show, eyes wide and mouth agape as the troupe spun and danced. The show was made possible by its organizer; a man she’d seen directing the crew from behind his multicolored mask- the same mask that stares into her soul now.
He slides a piece of paper over to her now; a little thing with his name in fine print and a number beneath. “I have an offer for you.”
She looks at it - it only contains his name and a phone number. She flips it over and the back is empty. “So… what’s the offer?”
“Hahaha, there’s no point in being forward with it. We’re both young, aren’t we? Indeed, there is time left yet for the both of us. As a fan of the stage, I’ve always been drawn to the art of drama- a well choreographed tale that takes one from humble beginnings to a high-stakes moment where it could all come crashing down. There’s a certain… elation that such a thing brings on. But your character still has much room to grow.”
She finds some old newspapers about him that evening; not a hard thing to do when the man is a celebrity. In short, he is an investor and a talent manager; doubtlessly if she calls his number, he will ask her to work under him as an actress of some sort. And yet…
She frowns and retrieves her glasses from where they are hidden behind a grocery store. She doesn’t bring them to school; they don’t fit with her limited collection of outfits and she can see well enough without them anyway. They were a gift from a short-lived day job working at a hotel; she’d been cleaning a room when a white-haired young man walked in and, on account of him losing his wallet, he’d tipped her with a pair of large glasses. They even had a little red light that periodically flashed or beeped, which had saved her from losing them more than a few times. Unfortunately, her manager had found out she was far too young to be working shortly after and the man had checked out with her expulsion as a noisy backdrop.
Her frown only deepens as she looks at a newspaper from two years ago, squinting through the glasses. She remembers the time well; against all odds, she’d managed to make it into a school and it seemed like things were looking up. Giovanni was front and center in the paper, standing in front of her school mere days before she’d been admitted. The title read, Giovanni di Giorgio Donates Large Sum to Local School .
She knows she is being paranoid, but her mind whirls and she is suddenly struck by the revelation that Giovanni had kept track of her to a certain degree ever since that day at the circus. Which means that he came to make her an offer despite possibly seeing her at her worst; illegally trying to find jobs as a child, picking a loaf of bread off the street, picking what must have been dozens if not hundreds of pockets, and running shady errands for a Mr. Cold Feet who never showed his face and paid her in hand-me-down clothes from who knows where. Why is Giovanni still interested in a partnership?
She knows this is a strange situation and she knows she is going to call him anyway. Because whatever his motive may be, he has kept track of her and that means that he cares, surely. Surely. Before she can stop herself, she punches in his number and the phone only rings twice before his voice crackles in.
“Hahaha, you’re a fast one, aren’t you? I’d expected a bit more trepidation.”
She decides to risk a bit of snark, certain that he will be annoyed and discard her for it. But it’s better to know than to be caught by surprise later. “What, was I too fast for you?”
He laughs heartily. “Ahaha, not at all! In fact, I’m pleased. Shall we get to business?”
She agrees to work with him and at once, she is sent a script. Is it her imagination, or is she being watched as she opens the document? She shudders and slips across the street, weaving around cars and sliding into a random store. It is some high-end fashion store that she certainly cannot afford. With a start, she realizes Giovanni is there, a hand on his chin as he browses. He hasn’t noticed her and she is fine with that; it seems best not to tell him she is hiding from a probably nonexistent stalker. Such a thing might put their new partnership in jeopardy and she doesn’t really want that. She busies herself with admiring a pretty strapless red dress adorned with pinkish frills. An hour later, she leaves with as little fanfare as her arrival. That’s good; she likes avoiding prying eyes. How else would she surprise people with her sharp smile and sharper tongue? Only, she’s never used that tongue and her smile is buried under the weight of an uncaring world. What’s the point of it? If no one sees her smile, is it a triumph or a failure?
She wakes the next day in a puddle; the little red light on her glasses kept flashing the night prior and she hadn’t known how to stop it. Eventually she’d just fallen asleep on the roadside with them still on her face. And thus her day starts with a self-administered slap to that face.
Stupid, stupid, stupid-
Her attention is drawn to her glasses, which are neatly resting on a box, safe from the puddle she rests in. The light is off and the large circles of thin glass gently watch her like a rather cheap guardian angel. She laughs to hide her uneasiness; how did they get there? Did someone find her while she was sleeping?
No, it must have been her. She’d realized how tired she was last night and put them down, that was it. How silly of her to forget.
There is a fancy silver box peeking out of a nearby dumpster, pristine in spite of its surroundings. Even though she knows it’s foolish, her thoughts stray to the girl in silver. Is this a message? A gift? She squeezes her eyes shut but the thoughts persist. She glances around. There is no one within sight. She swallows her pride and steps forward, cracking open the box.
Inside, folded ever so neatly, is a strapless red dress adorned with pinkish frills.
At once she feels too exposed and she looks around frantically; there are eyes trained on her and a laugh drifting by with the wind, she’s sure of it. It must be that, because if it isn’t…
She looks down at the dress again. It isn’t staring at her. It can’t, it’s a dress . She quickly lifts it - there is something tiny and hard tucked in the fabric, but she pays it no mind - and holding her prize close, she flees.
She pores over the script for the rest of the day, learning all there is to know about the character she will be made to play - her character. A leading character.
Sparkle.
Months later, her name is called in the cafeteria again, and this time she is ready. She stands up with a confident smile and a small flourish. Eyes flick to her as she walks, but after mere seconds they vanish and her smile follows. The girl in silver is absent and while it’s no surprise - she was gone the last few days as well - it only deepens the actress’ frown. If only the other girl was here- surely today would’ve been the day they spoke.
Minutes later, she is in the car with Giovanni, absentmindedly lowering and raising a window.
“Are you ready?” Giovanni asks, tapping at his phone for a moment before turning to her.
“Mm-hm. Ready.”
“My, you look a bit tired… no. A bit bored .” He says the last word with an unexpected energy, and though the eyes of his mask make no move she freezes with a finger still pressing on the window’s control.
There is something in those eyes that she cannot see, she’s sure of it.
Giovanni remains dead still, and at times like this, with his mask tilted ever so slightly downward, it is as if she is not talking to a person but a fleshless creature of the stage, arranging for lights and drama to befall an unfortunate actor. “How excellent that you’re so confident, for it seems… haha, how do I put this? It seems there’s been a request from the establishment. You see, they find scene two of the second act to be too… risqué. But we can’t just let the play end early.”
She nods; this is her big moment and she doesn’t want it to end a second early.
“So,” Giovanni continues, “you’ll need to do some improv. Add lines where you see fit; perhaps even a conversation if the show would benefit from it.”
Her stomach drops and she can feel her lunch rolling and sloshing upward. She’s never done improv- not a single word. And this is her debut. She can’t just do that. But Giovanni surely knows this and evidently does not care.
A hand covers her stomach absentmindedly as she protests; “But I can’t do that. I can’t do im- um, if I added things… doesn’t that go against the writers and themes? I can’t decide what’s important for the audience.”
“Don’t worry about the legality of it, haha. I will make sure there are no issues on that front. And as for your second point, the audience merely wants to be amused- to be elated by you . They don’t care how; that is why they aren’t writers. But you, you can decide for them in the writer’s stead. The story follows your character, and as such the world revolves around you. Sparkle, that poor, lonely, lovesick, hungry girl, is counting on you. Only you can bring her to life.”
She looks at the mask in her free hand; a part of her costume that she’s held on to throughout the day. It’s counting on her. She looks up at Giovanni. He’s counting on her. Suddenly the car feels much too small and she wants to vomit. If only Sparkle were real; she’d do this without a hitch.
An hour later she is in costume, tugging at her kimono and adjusting her mask. The story is meant to be a rather simple tragic love story; a traveling circus ringleader (Sparkle) performs at a castle and falls in love with the prince. He is attracted to her daring stunts and bold attitude at first, but grows bored of her and tells her to leave. Sparkle refuses and is pierced by arrows and blades, stumbling outside to find her beloved mask discarded on the ground; the same one that was earlier given to the prince. Dying in the grass, Sparkle puts on the mask to hide her tears and her role in the play ends.
After that is some political drama and scandal that she’s less interested in; in her admittedly biased opinion, the forbidden and flawed romance between the ringleader and prince makes up the emotional core of the play. But it won’t make up much of anything if she can’t make it onstage.
She makes sure the dressing room door is locked tight before she buries her face in her hands. Nausea threatens to overtake her because she’s been reviewing the script ever since Giovanni told her about the change of plans and she still can’t think of a single line to add. Everything she could try seems too much like her and not enough like Sparkle.
Her hands clench over the pure-white mask and to her surprise, the edge is sharp; there is a little razor tucked into it like an errant silver tear. She moves her hand away before stopping and giving the fox mask a shaky smile. Then she places a hand back on its ear and takes a deep breath.
At first she feels a little sting as her hand slides downward over the edge of the mask, then something snags and she is still as a herring caught on a hook.
Which is to say, her mouth is agape and her body is frozen as she hears a knock on the door. Surely it isn’t showtime already?
“You are coming, yes?” It is Giovanni’s voice, but the tone and cadence are different.
It hits her after a moment; he is mimicking a line from the first act of the upcoming show. Ignoring the red trickling down her hand, she perks up and smiles at the door, altering her own voice.
“Aw, are you that eager to see me?”
“Not in the slightest. The captain needs to see you, that’s all.”
“Is that so?” She sighs dramatically, as Sparkle was supposed to at this moment. Technically she should be leaning on the door but she doesn’t want her blood to stain the carpet.
“Yes, it is. I have better things to do than bother you and I am only here out of necessity.” Giovanni is taking the role in a very different direction than the actual actor, but the spirit of the character dances in him just as well. “Were you hoping for something more… personal?”
She blinks; that line isn’t in the play. The prince’s character didn’t say anything half as suggestive until late in the second act. Still, her mouth is moving on its own as she smiles for a nonexistent audience. “Oh? Is that interest in me that I hear? …Something more personal… I’d love to, hehe… but didn’t you say you had better things to do? I’d hate to interrupt your day. Maybe next time~”
There is a moment of silence… and then raucous applause.
“Wonderful, wonderful!” Giovanni exclaims, reverting back to his normal voice. “You truly do have the soul for improv. That’s all you have to do. Don’t read Sparkle- be Sparkle.”
She nods; even if Giovanni cannot see her through a door, Sparkle is always performing for an audience and must act as such. She spots a spare glove; it is black, made of thin airy thin material and probably meant for stage crew. Technically, it isn’t part of her costume, but…
She looks down at her bloodied finger and lets out a short laugh.
If acting happens offstage, maybe improv can too. Indeed, by picking up this glove, she is being Sparkle.
The performance is dazzling and flawless and she shines under everyone’s eyes. If they notice the blood on her mask they do not show it. A few fellow actors do, though, and near the end of the third act the prince asks if she is alright in a hushed tone.
Sparkle frowns. Here they are at the castle gate, discussing their future in what may very well be the most important conversation of their lives and he worries about something as trivial as that?
“Don’t change the topic,” Sparkle snaps, pushing away his tentatively outstretched arms. Her voice softens as she looks at him; the delicate look of a hopeful lover, the look that she has never made before, the look that feels too vulnerable. A look that, under the eyes of the crowd, makes her feel almost violated as if the audience has crawled into her bed. “You can tell, right? This castle won’t last. Won’t you come with me?”
He steps back and looks at her, pure surprise on his face. She hears a few gasps from the audience and barely holds in a smile. The prince, after an awkward moment, regains his composure. The actor realizes that he is expected to deliver his next line.
“The castle will not last because of you! You brought the enemy to our doorstep!”
Sparkle gasps; he isn’t supposed to know that.
A lonely girl soaks up the adoration of the crowd as Sparkle is stabbed. Sparkle limps into the woods, back turned as the girl feels the audience’s warm embrace. As a line of shiny blood runs down from the girl’s glove, flashing in the stage lights, Sparkle’s battered body crumples against a tree. A thousand faces watch them from so many different places; padded seats, rotting trees, distant castle balconies, and a wooden box. They chitter and shake and even though they’re too quiet to hear, Sparkle smiles up at them as the girl basks in the light of their eyes, finally satiated.
Sparkle looks down to see a pure-white mask, only it is no longer pure. Her dried blood mars its side next to the little razor that spilt it.
“It’s you,” Sparkle murmurs through a haze of pain, “my… my beloved mask.”
With a breathless wail, Sparkle falls on her back in a shallow pool, a hand straining to lift the mask to her face.
The girl steadies her hand to place the mask down in just the right position before going still.
The curtain falls. Her role is complete.
She’s glad that her improv let things end with a bang; the prince may have hated Sparkle in the end, but he wasn’t bored of her like the script predicted. That’s good; nobody deserves such a fate, and certainly not the great Sparkle.
She comes out again for the curtain call, emerging from the depths of the backstage amidst applause and cheers to wave and bow. The moment ends too soon; she would extend it if she could, make it her whole life and identify. She needs more.
As the last members of the stage crew finish their work, she stands on the stage again, alone. No, not quite alone.
Sparkle, too, stands on the stage, an arm raised ever so slightly as she watches the castle roll away. The only thing left and real from Sparkle’s world is… Sparkle.
She can’t seem to let go.
“Ahaha, I thought I’d find you here,” Giovanni says, walking towards her. “You did a splendid job tonight. Did you enjoy yourself?”
She looks mournfully at the empty seats pointed toward the stage. With a bit of effort, she can still feel the adoration of the crowd. “I’ve never had more fun.”
Giovanni hears the hesitation in her words. “But?”
“But I’m not ready to leave. I’m…” she pauses as her stomach growls, placing a hand over it as if that will solve the problem. “I’m hungry.”
“That’s only natural. Go treat yourself; you’ve earned it.” Giovanni places a stack of money into her hand and she is grateful, but the hunger only worsens.
She is starving; she’s gone all day eating the bare minimum. At first it was to stay light for her performance, but that wasn’t the only reason. She’s gone so long without a properly sized meal and that makes her special . She’s done something magical and amazing and she needs to scream it out into the world so people will gasp and look at her and not look away. So they’ll never look away.
“Of course. I’ve barely eaten since yesterday. All for the show.”
See? I put so much effort in. Please notice. Please stay. Please l-
“What astounding dedication, haha. But remember to eat sometimes. If your body is too worn out, it’ll affect your performance just as overeating would.”
It’s something but it’s not enough . The fingers on her gloved hand press against one another.
“Oh,” Giovanni continues, “I took the liberty of setting up a little room for you under this very stage. You’ll have to be careful, though; I may not have gotten permission for this construction project, haha.”
She is, for the first time in a long time, as speechless as Sparkle had been upon being ‘killed’.
“There are many more stories to tell,” Giovanni finished, turning away. “You’ll be in the spotlight again; I guarantee it, haha…”
She smiles faintly as he leaves. He’s really been too kind, but she isn’t going to complain. She finds her room’s sole closet to be filled with strapless red dresses, adorned with pinkish frills. She cries that night.
In the days going forward, she still feels Sparkle in her; she’s tasted the adoration of the masses and she needs more of it. She needs so much more. When she sneaks into her little room at night, she digs her nails into her skin to distract herself from the janitors; she needs to avoid them but her stomach is tense and her mind is light and all she wants to do is skip over and say, “hey, I’m Sparkle~”
She tries to be quiet in school, but she’s realized something; she hates it. She hates what she was before the stage, before Giovanni. But… she hasn’t changed. She’s met Sparkle, but she’s still her . So… does that mean she still hates herself?
The question haunts her.
She tosses a wan smile to the pretty girl in silver and the girl smiles back, looking equally tired. They still haven’t spoken, but they can be patient. She’s still waiting, dreaming of the day when they will talk under the shade of a tree as the sun beats down on them and curtains of light isolate them in their own little world. She may not know the other girl’s name but she knows exactly what they’ll talk about, what they’ll do, what they’ll think. She’s lived their perfect conversation a hundred times inside and it’s still too short.
As they go another day without talking, she thinks she knows ‘the answer’.
Yes.
Her name was conspicuously absent from the program for her debut; Giovanni said it was meant to stir up intrigue and that she’d be credited where it mattered. On occasion, she hears people talking about her - no, about Sparkle - and so she knows his choice is paying off. Still, she yearns to be recognized. It would be so easy to stand up and say “I’m the real Sparkle,” but she always stops short. Because she is sure that everyone would sigh in disappointment and the crowds would be empty after that, because no one wants to see her . They want Sparkle . But she can’t blame them, because she wants Sparkle too. Who doesn’t?
“Once again, we’ll need some improv,” Giovanni tells her, “it seems we need to replace act two, scene four this time. It’s a hassle, but I’m sure you’ll make it work, hahaha!”
He is enjoying this and she suspects that he is behind the scene removals. But what right does she have to complain, when she’s enjoying it too? Yes, with every line she makes up a fiery thrill runs through her veins and the buzzing wires of potential cross in her mind.
She’s formed a pre-show ritual by now, all based on that first evening, the one where she tried on Sparkle for the first time. She skips meals and keeps track of just how much it sucks, because then she can tell Giovanni and surely he’ll… hm. She doesn’t quite know what response she wants and maybe that’s as thrilling as anything.
Her mask is now half red and a glove has been custom made; additions to her outfit after her first performance. There is a growing collection of bleeding, scarring, peeling flesh beneath the glove and she will add to it each show; the pain makes her feel cold and muffled and pushes her beneath nonexistent waves so that Sparkle can appear. Sparkle wears her face as if it is her own and sometimes, she will stare in a mirror and wonder if she’s the faker in Sparkle’s body. She hopes so. Maybe if she’s Sparkle, she can start over; she can shine and smile and everyone will love her.
Until then, all she has is the distant crowd and herself. As blood runs under her nails and forms a thin crust around her knuckles, she sprawls across the dressing room carpet and peppers kisses across her arms. She’s still hungry; still empty. She hugs herself until she’s sure there will be bruises; if so, they’ll be below the costume, so who cares? Certainly not the audience. They’re here for Sparkle, and they’ll get Sparkle, same as every other time she’s walked onto the stage.
How many rivulets of blood and tears does it take to stimulate human contact? She doesn’t know but she’s on the way to finding out or burning out in the process.
Every empty seat makes her feel ill and every guest that looks away during the show is a needle piercing her stomach and knitting barbed wire inside. It’s still a rather profitable performance and the show goes off without a hitch, but it’s not enough. She’s starving. Sparkle, too, is hungry; maybe, they think, they’ll feel better if they hug each other some more, kiss each other some more. But they never do. Giovanni says that she’s changed so much that for all intents and purposes, she is Sparkle, and she hopes he is right. Even if it means that there really is no one talking to her and certainly not loving her.
Giovanni’s gloves have started to feel more human than her own hands, and she craves for their touch on her shoulder as Giovanni congratulates her on a job well done. If only she were someone else, so Sparkle could hold her. If only. She contents herself with leaning into Giovanni’s gloved hand after yet another performance.
She is fast asleep in her room after the show; the theater above is dark, but even if the sun itself were above, she would not wake. Her bed is a mess, filled with masks and gloves that she clutches like beloved stuffed animals. They press jagged lines into her skin and it hurts to wake. Luckily, she’s tired from her most recent performance and will not wake up for hours. In her dreams, Sparkle shoots her and takes her face as a fancy new mask. Late in the next morning, she wakes up disappointed that the dream is nothing more than a dream.
Her phone shows her a notification from Giovanni when she powers it on.
It’s a text with a proposition; a next step of sorts for their partnership and her career.
Giovanni wants to take Sparkle to perform in other cities; the list is long and the thought of so many people from so many places revering her is enough to salivate over.
…She doesn’t, of course. Probably.
Sparkle accepts, and as a final goodbye to the place she’s lived in all her life, she finds solace in the shade of a large tree overlooking the roads and buildings below. Looking down at her phone, Sparkle finds a slew of affordable apartments in their destination. She’ll miss the hidden room under the stage, but she can afford better now and is excited by the prospect. She is reviewing the plane tickets Giovanni sent her when a girl in a silver skirt walks up to her.
She stops just outside of the tree’s shade. “Um… hey.”
Sparkle smiles cheerily. “Hey.”
“Hey, uh… do you want to go out to dinner tomorrow?” The girl’s voice is small and uncertain and just a bit flatter than Sparkle expected.
Sparkle blinks in surprise. That’s it? How… simple. How wrong. Words flow to her mouth regardless of her surprise, slipping out into the world. “Sorry, I’ve got plans already.”
“...Okay.” She stands around awkwardly for a moment and Sparkle realizes there is something in the girl’s hair. For a second the pin hits the light and Sparkle could swear it was a miniature version of her mask. But the curtain of sunlight falls between them and it is rather hard to tell.
Then the girl is gone, disappearing down the hill. Sparkle feels an uncomfortable chill run down her spine and coil around her chest. She forces a smile and it melts into a mask with nothing beneath. Then her feelings seem to steady out for a moment, so surely she’s done something right. It’s not like she needs to live an inferior version of the conversation she’s wrung dry in her mind. Yes, she’s just guaranteed her future at the low cost of losing the one person whose hands are not porcelain or satin of nothing. Sparkle doesn’t even know the girl!
She laughs quietly and pulls the phone to her chest, closing her eyes. It is warm against her skin and she savors it in a fleeting moment of peace. Soon she will get on a plane with Giovanni and Sparkle will be far, far away, performing for the masses.
She can feel the adoration already.