by Joyce Huang
The protagonist of this tale is a boy. An actor. He’s one of those child prodigies, booming to stardom just a bit too early for stability, somewhat spoiled, somewhat snobbish. Arrogant and proud of his talent. A photogenic face, a nice haircut, and he’s the next James Dean, or so he thinks. No one likes him, though enough people pretend to that it doesn’t put a dent in his superiority complex. But he’s a good actor, truly, and he does all his research, goes all out for his job, sinks himself to the eyebrows into his roles, and what it does is lead to a not-so-mild case of identity crisis; beautiful women slink up for a chat and he obliges, eyes opaque, with a mindset that belongs to another. He puts up many, many mirrors in his rooms. People snigger at a narcissistic complex. He begins to hate his face. It’s just skin, a thin and deceptive covering, hiding underneath it a teeming multitude of personalities, and his own is pushed down and down and down, till he doesn’t know how to find it again. One morning his agent enters his room to find all the mirrors smashed, and the protagonist’s hand bleeding into the thick hotel carpet. Their eyes meet, both pairs wild. With the large gashes on his knuckles, the crimson leaking down his pale skin, the unruly hair and uncertain sneer, he does not look entirely sane. They hush it up successfully from the public, as money always will. And yet the gossip-mill is never idle; soon people in inner circles are giggling about how he must not be satisfied with his plastic job, their gazes trailing after him with cheerful malice. He’s never gotten a face lift, damn them, though he’s probably one of the few in Hollywood who can say that without lying. He used to think himself handsome, good-looking, the kind of guy every girl wants for a boyfriend, that every boy wishes to be. He’s not sure what to think, anymore. All he knows is that if he loses it, there are a dozen rising stars eager to depose him and kick his feeble body into a side-alley dumpster. That cannot be borne. His grin grows cockier. When he looks in the mirrors now, he sees bones pressing against the paper layer of skin, no longer a growing boy’s lankiness but a sparity of flesh that speaks of a starving soul. People say that he’s full of himself, and it’s not that far from the truth. What they don’t seem to understand, or care about, is that if he doesn’t fill the emptiness inside him, no one else will. He takes to wild all-night parties. Women. Drink. Ultimately, narcotics. Like a mouse that begins to nibble its own tail with the lack of an external food source, he is gradually swallowing himself whole. In the end, he does. Stars rise. Stars fall. He fades into the oblivion of the night sky, with only a few old, discarded magazine covers to mark the passing of his existence. He has no name. He has a dozen names, ten dozen, ten dozen times a hundred or a hundred thousand. Forgotten idols whose shrines have long since run wild, this is their story. #Volume 7 Issue 1 a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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