Ghost Light by Michelle Huang

Ghost Light

by Michelle Huang

Yet another social gathering. Exposure therapy will be good for you. I scoff at my own attempt at persuasion. All these strangers exist on the other side; in an elusive space I cannot comprehend nor reach. It’s an otherworldly performance.

Inhale, exhale. Let’s try to give them a good show. Break a leg.

“Let’s break the ice!”

They encourage participation like a Primary School classroom. Cross-legged on the carpet, a teacher directing the cohort with a white-board pen. There seems to always be a few extroverts that you can hear best. They banter like it’s improv, bouncing off one another without a beat of hesitation. Or maybe it’s more like a well-rehearsed dialogue, the comedic timings deliberate yet natural. Who gave them the script?

“Let’s go around in a circle!”

I see their efforts, I see their effortlessness. Their cohesive wardrobes, the sensible colour palettes. I’m admiring the way their hair falls, their already identifi able quirks and habits. I hear the way they speak, the timely wit, the pitch of their laughter. I take note of their eyes when they’re listening to others, their manner of nodding, the pattern of their responses. The pages of my mental notebook are covered in scribbles; dark, heavy-handed scribbles. The ink is spilling over the other side.

“What’s your favourite food?”

Who am I? What do I like? All memories and facts about myself escape me in the face of these nameless people. I close my eyes and trace through all those moments I have lived. But I only read the books on other people’s shelves, I add the song they listen to my playlist, I buy the clothes they’ve worn, I watch the fi lms they reference. I imagine that I was a collection of all the things I loved about the people I have met.

“If you were an animal, what would you be?”

I wish I could see myself that way, something as captivating as a technicolour mosaic, a stained glass window that refl ects glowing colours from the sunlight, one that picks up the pieces from people I have met, all assembled into a personality I claimed as my own.

“What’s your favourite movie?”

But I feel that I am not this kaleidoscopic good-looker, nor alluring, nor ensnaring. I am cheap – a shell of a person – suffocated by superfi cial moments of identity. In the pit of my stomach, a brewing sour admiration and bitter respect for these strangers consume my every being. I repeat the punchlines I hear, I repeat the fun facts, I pretend these opinions are mine, I cannot formulate a single thing that belongs to me. I am a regurgitation of all the things that I have seen and heard.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?”

There is no poetry in this envy. No green serpent that’s wrapped around my neck. It is simple, clichéd, ego death.

“Who’s your favourite artist?”

I don’t seem to have a ‘favourite’ anything. I have tried tirelessly to make something my own. I’ve never discovered any cool bands or artists on my own. It was all through listening to what my friends liked, and weeding out the ones I didn’t like as much. It made me feel like a copy. Am I the feedback from a microphone? An unoriginal echo of what my peers were – empty, paradied scraps of an incomplete person?

“What’s your dream travel destination?”

I’m picking at my cuticles again, I’m biting my nails. The room is dark, only dimly lit, but when I leave and reenter the light, I know I’ll fi nd dried blood around my nail beds. Red-stained and jittery, my fi ngers and teeth will be raw and sore. I’ll fi nd fl esh, exposed.

Maybe it’s time to go home. Maybe draw the curtains close.