He had to keep at it, Even though it was turning him into a monster. The years of the 12 ounce curls had transformed him into something and someone unrecognizable. Was he even human anymore? He had the basic shape, but his skin was more reptile than recognizably human. Green and bumpy, he looked alien, foreign, and in reality he was. He has transformed himself into a creature that existed to feed its ego only. Anything he wanted he got – begged, borrowed, or stole. He wasn’t ashamed to guilt trip or manipulate. He used every trick in the book, and even added a few pages of his own.

Now he had gotten the council to give him an assistant to follow him around to cater to his every whim. Sometimes that was walking him to the pub and holding up his pint for him since he could no longer see for himself.

His eyes had swollen shut in a vain attempt to protect him from further harm. They figured if he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t want. So much of human “need” comes from what pours into the eyes. It is why people who give up watching TV (either voluntarily or not) end up saving money. It wasn’t just the cable bill they were doing without. They were doing without all the ads telling them what they were missing out on, telling them they would find love and acceptance and community if only they bought this thing that they didn’t even want or knew existed 10 minutes earlier.

And now he was part of that industry, that machine, cranking out 1000 widgets a minute, creating the supply first and then the demand. He was a spokesman for these fellow monsters, who weren’t yet ugly on the outside but were certainly ugly on the inside.

(Written early August 2019)