Pathetique.

I am Other. I pirouette to the music that plays around me, the music that nobody else can hear. Exotic and strange smells fill the air just above me, haunting, tantalising; my golden wings struggle to unfurl against the silver straightjacket that they have forced me into.

A snatch of cinnamon flickers past my nose, twirling me around, and then the haunting scent of myrrh, a reminder of death. My feet are so tired, so tired, but I cannot rest. One day, my wings will unfurl. One day.

Blood blossoms like cherries from my sakura-pink ballet shoes, but I don't care. The white mask on my face keeps in the tears from one eye as I lift my arms to the air, silver fingernails clawing desperately at something that is no longer there. Maybe it never was.

A new scent fills the air. The scent of Him; His hair, His aftershave, and that one scent I could never place. The one that reminded me of rain in spring. I look up, and on the balcony above I see Him. He bears a mask too; a smiling joker, incandescent in the light of the chandelier above. The cruel theatre where I am forced to perform like a monkey was designed to bring out the magnificence in all. It merely caricaturizes all. He watches as I bleed, and twirl, and reach up not to the essences that fly above me. To Him.

Then I see them. The balconies are filled with the Normal, masked faces one and all jeering. Snarling demons, raging bears, screaming harpies and banshees and all manner of ghouls immortalised in mask form. They point and laugh at the bloody footprints I am leaving everywhere, snarling and catcalling that I am merely running in circles.

One of them takes His hand, and He is led away, eyes still staring blankly at where I dance, sobbing. I screw up the last of my shattered determination, and rip off the straightjacket... only to remember that they have clipped my wings. Shreds of golden feather lie about the stage... how could I have forgotten? I slump to the ground, weeping as two of them drag me to my feet and pull my straightjacket back on. Then, pushing me, they cajole me into dancing again.

Not in the sixteen years since it began has it ended. I have no hope that it ever will.