Imposter
Clarence walked nonchalantly downtown, nothing especial to do, and while humming a tune he espied a placard between entrances to indeterminate establishments. It read:
Love Shopping? …seeking person or persons to pose in store incognito. $12 per survey.
He didn’t, particularly, love shopping, but the poster intrigued him. Was it a social experiment? A zealous competitor trying to undermine its opposition? A fraud baiting naïve-innocents with a non-fatiguing lure? But then again what was twelve bucks nowadays? A drink and a sandwich, and nothing fancy. So, how many survey’s were they talking about? Doing exactly what? His mind took a cynical bend.
He dialed the number walking. Having already paused too long, he took the call from a distance. Defensively posturing, as others might have presumed-- making a connection-- that he had been, maybe, suckered in.
He expected an automated service.
“Hello, Abott Marketing. How may I help you?” said a polite yet sultry voice of unspecified age, young but mature, or mature but youthful-- very attentive.
Now he felt a reproachful goofiness, a grown man seeking a shopping spree, not worth a dozen singles. And yet:
“Uh, yes. I’m responding to the advert posted,” he said feigning great interest, animating his tone a little extra, unnecessarily.
“What is your location?” she enunciated charmingly. Was he detecting an accent? He couldn’t quite place it. He craned his neck out from the shadow doorway he’d ducked into to better read the street sign:
“Corner of First and Boulder.”
“One moment…” and abrupt silence swept into music.
He started imagining how the face or body might match or contrast the vocal. The elevator tune raised an image of Jane Harlow, then turned a bit more Latina from Rita Hayworth to Victoria Monet, and then she was suddenly an overbearing trench with gorilla arms and low drawn hat not quite in any traditional shape, drooping and uniform grey, barely covering steely grey eyes.
“Ya’ rang?” he growled in a low hoarse whisper.
The wire went dead.
“Yeah. The… woman had me... on hold… “ he hung up and fixed his lip, emotionless.
“Ya’d be waitin’ a long time, heh, heh?” the cavalier sniggered at the dummy.
He had been taken in, a robocall, after all; and this was strange “personal” service.
Just how far was this farce going to evolve?
He kept a poker face. It was well-tanned apeman’s turn to make a false move.
Fake Contest
She had everything going for her, skin deep. She presented gloriously on the stage as the designated beauty from her state. Her buttocks were firm and tented the bikini bottom just so. Her breasts were just so...healthy! Hanging perfectly at attention. Her waist was flat, the perfect connection between her upper and lower body.
Her legs were shapely, sinewy, and begging for the highest skirts possible. Her feet were lovely, like a child's. Her hands were porcelain. Her arms were cantilevers of poetry.
Her face would one day launch a thousand ships. While most noses are noticed immediately on a face, it's the attractive ones that are visited last, and she had impish upturned nose, on the perfect side of retroussé.
Her gait was a strut. Smooth and beckoning to follow, even into the gates of Hell, if she so ventured. As she walked, all of her parts syncopated in an interesting embellishment of her beauty.
This was the quintessential woman, skin deep. Who would care what was underneath?
While it's true the beautiful who walk among us compete in a fake competition for the eyes, age is the great equalizer. And while it's also true that beautiful people may be just as beautiful beyond skin deep and beyond, we train the beautiful to stay beautiful as long as they can, with fake adulation earned in fake contests.
She won the contest.
Deemed the most beautiful. In external appearance that belies the truth. And in twenty years, she'll catch up to everyone else on life's stage.
_______________________________
The pretty, young thing was an appetizer
Favored over a plain woman--no surprise there
But as they both got older
Similar wrinkles consoled her
For age was the ultimate equalizer
Fakest Fake
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, we agree that it's fake?"
"Ok, but clarify."
"A robot fakes actions, emotions, and people do too..."
"So, then, which is the 'bigger' fake?"
"Yes, now you've got it!"
"Hm. One is a fake faker. And the other an honest fake. Or the other way around, an honest faker and a fake fake...?"
"Is it a question of intent and motivation?"
"Say an actor fakes and gets lauded for it. A bot fakes and gets awards, rather it's manufacturers do... But, if an ordinary folk fakes..."
"Man--!"
"Phoney. Complete fake."
2024 OCT 07
We are fake
I am Fake
are you?
I smile, when I should have cried
I cry sometimes
for gifts of dirt
You are fake
I wish I could say
straight to your face
but no , I cant
because I am fake
We live in reality
but we all are fake
we hide in those skull of ours
we are fake
we want people to love us
when we show them hate
we are fake
we want golden limbs worth
a dime of soil
we all are fake
i don’t want to win
It's always a contest
in the darkness of my mind.
I'm always scheming,
planning,
trying to find a way to win.
Of course,
the contest is only real
inside of me.
No one else knows
what thoughts are swirling.
I use this contest
to make myself happy.
But it does the opposite.
I retreat further and
further,
into myself.
I let my emotions run
rampant,
but keep them contained.
I used to be the kind of girl
who would write a poem
about how she felt
and show it to whoever
made her feel
the way the poem described.
Now,
I can't even
admit half
the thoughts I have
even to a pad of paper.
I've been in this contest
since I can remember.
But what if winning
means losing myself?
Every shred
of who I used to be.
Because winning this
wretched contest,
pretending like I don't care,
like everything in the world is perfect,
might just cost me everything.