#maybe the masks get shuffled around and I have to use an old grubby one with a dog footprint on it.

[manyblinkinglights]

Love how things going well is making me absolutely sick with dread around the edges of shutting down. It will literally be fine. I guess I’m reacting to putting up with whatever happens to me being my only response to like the ordinary exigencies of adult life, because for a while doing that did mean enduring stuff that sucked. And now I’m doing the same thing again, and I can’t accept that maybe it will be nice this time because obviously that’s a totally dysfunctional attitude to have. Like, there WILL be various disappointments and stressors, and these WILL feel, however briefly and inappropriately, like the hell for which I am  braced. So the blows like WILL fall though even it’s just “and I had to stand in the sun without sunscreen for longer than I intended” (the little rat inside my skull fried and screaming) Like it will definitely be fine, I am going to endure it. But I can’t accept that it will be nice. OKAY LISTEN UP, RAT. YEAH PROBABLY YOU WILL FORGET YOUR SUNGLASSES AT SOME POINT. SO HOLD FAST AND STAY BRACED FOR IT.

[theninjazebra]

rest of my Animal Kingdom fanart can be found Here

Part 4: Renn in my fic series - In the Wake (or In Which The Codys Kinda Hang Out And Take Turns Having Messy Breakdowns). got another 4 parts planned after this. 

part 1 Pope

part 2 Deran

part 3 Craig

fic under cut -

Renn.

A house with a baby is never fully asleep. A house with a coke dealer and born thief is never fully asleep either, but in this new life Renn finds she doesn’t startle awake anymore, never too deeply asleep to be unable to smoothly tap back into wakefulness. 

She can hear voices coming from the main bathroom down the hall. She can hear Nick doing his soft baby breathing in the cot, and Craig isn’t in the room. Deran must be home. 

She contemplates going back to sleep, but a check of her phone says Nick will be up for a feed again soon. Renn sighs, gets out of bed, finds a clean enough hoodie of Craig’s and walks on cold feet down the hall. 

The scene in the bathroom is becoming familiar. Craig trying to wrestle Deran out of dirt, blood, and vomit stained clothes and into the shower, Deran hopelessly insensible, possibly crying, slurring dark shit when he could even form words. It used to be the other way round, Deran never really having an appetite for this kind of oblivion, preferring pure adrenaline and a bit of weed to soften the crash. There was a time, when he was .. 13? 14? he would get shitfaced on whatever he could get his little grubby hands on and Renn would help Craig wrestle him home. Hopefully this too would pass. 

“Hey, I’m going to feed Nick in sec, you need anything?” 

Craig startles, looks up. “Nah, we’re good. Sorry about this. Again.” Deran takes this opportunity to lurch forward and split his lip on the edge of the bath, feeling nothing. Craig swears. 

“It’s ok.” She means it.

***

She ends up having to walk her baby up and down the road in front of the house to get him to settle again. Craig swears by it, says the sea air has healing properties. 

Renn still can’t quite believe she’s playing house and babies with Craig Cody. And that she doesn’t hate it, that he isn’t fucking it up so far. Oh, it isn’t easy, and she has a hefty rainy day fund stashed away for the second it doesn’t work out. Nights like these, with fussing babies and little brothers keep them up, it’s tempting. Cut, run again. See if her cousins have any work going. 

But she won’t. Can’t. There isn’t a word for what Craig is for her. Never safe or stable enough to last long, but always a shelter when she’s needed it most.  And though they had never been exclusive, he is the only man she’s fucked in years. Who knows, maybe this will be different. A baby, no more Smurf…

Nick finally stopped grizzling, and they headed inside. The house is quiet when she gets in, Deran curled up unconscious on the couch in a t-shirt four sizes too big. Craig is still awake when she slips back into bed.

“You were right, that sea air really does the trick.”

Craig hums and curl around her. “Yeah, he loves the ocean. Can’t wait to get him on a board.” 

“Not long before he can have his first swim.” An idea strikes her, she turns in Craig’s arms and looks up at his closed eyes. “We should do something for it. It’s almost like a baptism or a christening or something, right? But better. I don’t want him in some church, and your family isn’t religious, are they?”

Craig smiles, open one eye. “Fuck no. I mean, Pope maybe, when he feels like it. But I like your idea. Will be nice to have a celebration.”

“We could invite my cousins. They haven’t met Baby Nicolas yet.” Craig gives her a look. 

“They know he’s my baby?” 

“I don’t think they’ll be surprised. They were never going to hurt you. I’ll never hurt you, baby.” 

Craig buries his face in her hair. His breath deepens and she’s just starting to drift back to the shallow sleep that’s become her new normal when Craig mumbles into her hair, “I’m worried about him. It’s getting worse. I don’t know what to do.” 

“Yeah. He’ll pull through again. You’re doing fine.”

“Why do you put up with all our stupid Cody shit? You just had a baby.” 

“It’s fine. I kinda expected it would be hard for him.” 

Craig pulls back, suspicious. “Why?”

“Craig, I know, ok?” Craig frowns, is clearly trying to work out how to lie to her face, but Renn stares him down. She feels like a monster when Craig buries his face in her hair again, goes very still, and then a fine tremor starts in his hands and then down long limbs, to his whole body. He isn’t crying, but she thinks it’s because he doesn’t know how to cry about this. This dark, hopeless thing he’s carried for his brother for so long. 

She remembers, like it’s a photograph, Craig’s face that night. 

Renn usually tried to avoid the Cody house, but her living situation had been in flux for a couple days and crashing there had been the easiest option. She just hid in Craig’s room, avoided the rest of the family and Craig brought her food. Just like old times.

It had been very late, or very early, after a nice day. Lazy and hot, too buzzed and fucked to be worried about much. She had his complete attention, both of them lost in a warm dark world of their own.

They hadn’t heard the door to the shared bathroom open over the music - not loud, but enough to mask most noise elsewhere in the house. But she had heard Deran, calling to Craig, standing still and not-right in the doorway, half hidden in shadow. His voice had sounded… she didn’t know. Wrong.

The effect on Craig wasn’t like anything Renn had seen before or since. Suddenly sober and closed off from her, solely intent on getting her out and shielding Deran from her sight. The only clear look at Craig’s face she had was of soul deep heartbreak and despair. 

Everyone had an opinion on how Smurf was with her sons, but Renn had seen it. She had spent the next two nights sleeping in a friend’s van and Craig had avoided her for months after.

“I don’t think you remember, but that time I stayed at the house…”

“I remember. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Yeah.” 

Craig didn’t save her from her mother’s house, but did provide enough to keep her going until her Uncle Nicolas could come, sweep her up, give her shelter and a means to never need her mother again. And here in the dark, smothered in the Cody’s secrets, she couldn’t be more grateful.

***

Renn usually woke first to enjoy the secret morning time to herself. Just enough time for coffee and the ever present roar of the surf. Go through the night’s messages, work out who wants what when and plan the day accordingly. 

The couch is empty when she gets up, but a groan and the sound of the toilet flushing means Deran has stuck around this morning. The look on his face when he emerges says that he won’t be ready to go anywhere for a while yet. 

Renn makes herself some coffee, sets some water in front of Deran where he’s slumped at the kitchen counter avoiding her gaze. She gets why he’s embarrassed, but really, come on, they’d both seen so much worse from Craig over the years. Fuck, Deran had probably seen worse from her. 

“So Craig and I talked last night. Think we might do a thing for Nick’s first swim in the ocean.” 

Deran cracked an eyelid at that. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Dunno yet. Just invite people down to the beach. Get him his first wet suit. Probably want a party after. Wanna host?”

Deran looks confused, not ready yet to think. “My house isn’t that big…” 

Renn fails to not smile. “No, at your bar, dumbass.”

“Oh. Yeah, that sounds cool.”

At that moment the bedroom door opens and Craig staggers past with an indignant Baby Nick in one arm, retrieves more towels from the hall closet and shuffles back to the en suite, muttering darkly about showers needing to change the sheets in the crib.

Deran groans and slinks back to the bathroom. 

Renn pours herself another coffee and pulls out her phone. She’s going to need to work out a date for this thing first.

[bkdksecretsanta]

untitled

Gift fic for Drea aka bkdk4life on twitter from @3rdgymbros.

A message from the Santa:

Hi, lovely! I'm your Secret Santa this year, and I really hope you like this story! Happy holidays and I hope you have a great year ahead!

He opens his eyes to behold white everywhere. Spots of colour float above him; Izuku blinks, and the dots unify into one blob, which materialises into Bakugou’s face, smudged with dirt and littered with a mass of cuts. Itsuka lingers by the door; she waves at Izuku and limps out to give them their privacy before Bakugou can snarl at her.

“Fucking Deku,” Katsuki mutters, but there’s no real venom in his tone, and the frown on his face does little to mask the worry in his eyes. “What the hell were you thinking, going in without backup?”

He manages a weak smile, his voice a hoarse whisper, “Knew you’d show eventually.”

“And if we hadn’t?” Bakugou counters harshly. “You could have died. Fuckin hypocrite. Telling all of us not to go in alone, but it’s fine if you go and do it, huh?”

Izuku sighs, “Don’t worry about it. I did what I had to do. There were civilians in there, Kacchan, I couldn’t just leave them.”

“You should have waited.”

The doctor bustles in then, slender in a white lab coat. “I’m sorry,” She says to Bakugou, soft and firm as she injects something into the IV tubing, “But the patient needs his rest. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“We gotta go, Bakugou,” Itsuka says, leaning heavily on her right leg as she stumbles into the room before Bakugou can blow up. “We still have to debrief the interns and give the police our statements.”

“Fuck you, I’m not going anywhere!”

“Yes, you are,” Nonplussed, Izuku interjects. His vision blurs again, and his eyelids threaten to fall of their own accord. There must have been a sedative amongst the medicine cocktail in his IV. “This can wait. Go get fixed up, I’ll be here.”

“See?” He hears Itsuka say. “Besides, our five minutes with him are up. Let’s go.”

Before Izuku can respond, everything dissolves again.

XXX

Izuku wakes to a dark world, energised. If every object weren’t in such sharp focus, and if his bladder wasn’t so uncomfortably stretched, he’d believe this was a dream.

After using the adjoining toilet, Izuku wheels himself back into the room, careful not to wake Kacchan, who’s curled up on the couch in the room, asleep and breathing deeply. Despite their earlier disagreement, he does feel warmed at having Bakugou in the same room with him – it’s a peace offering of sorts, and as close to an apology as he’ll get.

Something tugs on his fingers, gentle but persistent, and Izuku just about jumps out of his skin.

“Mama?”

Big, bright eyes, much wordier than they should be, stare at Izuku in the dim light, and this time, he does yelp.

And Bakugou chooses the worst time to wake up from his slumber, leaping up and screaming profanities that do nothing towards diffusing the situation. There’s a quiet whimper, a muffled sniff, and the shuffling of feet.

Fumbling for the light switch with clumsy, harried fingers, Izuku finally manages to grab the remote and hit the lights. Only then does Bakugou calm down. Izuku turns around. A little boy steps back, tucking his hands under his chin. Moments later, he sneezes into them, he could be anybody’s child, fresh from playing in dirt – muck masks the original colour of his skin and the precise proportions of his features, sans a pair of wide set eyes the precise hue and colour of fine cut emeralds.

“It’s just a f – A kid, Deku,” Bakugou gripes, already giving the boy a dismissive once over. He isn’t cursing as much as usual, Izuku notes, probably because there’s a kid in the room with them. Even angry and tired, he still has some sensibilities about him. “Shoo,” Bakugou says half-heartedly, making a gesture to the door and hoping that the kid will get the message and scram.

All he gets is a blink.

Izuku muffles a laugh.

“What’s your name?” Izuku asks gently, squatting to get a better look at the boy. His face is unusually solemn, but his movements are quick, bright and normal, like the typical kids he sees playing in the streets. “Where’s your Mom? And how did you end up here?”

A chubby index finger reaches out, traces the freckles dotting Izuku’s cheeks. “Mama!” He says again, in a high, clear voice.

“Pfft, the twerp thinks you’re a girl, Deku –”

“Kacchan, you’re laughing too much!” Izuku protests half-heartedly. “No, no, I’m Izuku. And I am most definitely not a girl.” He points a finger in Katsuki’s direction. “That’s Kacchan. What’s your name?”

The little boy blinks again, and shoves his fingers into his mouth, more concerned with sucking on the little digits than he is at replying to Izuku’s question. Or maybe it’s because the only word in his repertoire is Mama, Izuku doesn’t really know.

“That’s gross, cut it out, twerp!” Katsuki snaps, somehow managing to sound appalled and disgusted all at once when the little boy yanks his fingers out of his mouth and starts waving them around, sticky and wet, and a few centimetres away from Izuku’s face.

Still, Bakugou yanks out a couple of tissues from the box on Izuku’s bedside table, and meticulously starts cleaning those grubby little fingers. Bakugou’s surprisingly gentle with the little boy, who watches Bakugou’s every movement with those unnerving eyes, his shell-pink lips open in a big “O”. There’s a soft sound of protest from their owner, and in return, Bakugou snaps out a petulant, “Quit squirming, brat! I’m doing this for you, you’d better be grateful!”

Izuku points out, trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile, “Nobody asked you to, Kacchan.”

“Can it, Deku.”

When the alarm goes off in the room, the telltale click clack of heels on tiles comes closer and closer, until Izuku catches sight of his pink-haired nurse dashing into the room, her face awash with relief when she catches sight of the little boy with them.

“Katsuro, there you are!” The nurse admonishes the little boy, now known as Katsuro, hands on her hips. “Really! We’ve been looking all over for you! What do you have to say for yourself, running off like that?”

“Mmmmamamama . . .”

The nurse directs a flurry of apologies at both Bakugou and Izuku (he smiles and waves goodbye to little Katsuro), and they both walk out of the room, Katsuro’s small and grubby fingers clutched tightly in the nurse’s own gloved fingers.

Izuku can still feel a pair of eyes staring at him.

XXX

Bakugou’s pushing Izuku’s wheelchair into the rooftop garden that’s devoid of patients, and Izuku inhales the fresh air and perfumes of plants, whose outlines he can barely see. It’s a dark, balmy night, and everything might as well be made of shadows. They walk down the rows of apple trees, each hung with a ripening fruit, Izuku chattering away about everything and nothing, when they hear the quiet, familiar voice garble, “Mamama”, and a surprisingly strong hand grabs onto the hem of Izuku’s hospital gown.

Bakugou scowls down at Katsuro, who seems perfectly unperturbed, and only gurgles at the older man. “How did you find us again, twerp? Aren’t babies supposed to be in bed by now?”

“Mamama,” Katsuro gabbles, holding up his outstretched hands. “Mama?”

“Kacchan, don’t be rude!” Izuku chides, smiling down at the little boy – Katsuro, he reminds himself – and cheerfully obliges by picking Katsuro up and placing him on his lap.

Katsuro’s been washed and cleaned; he’s a bright smear of warm limbs and ash blond hair, bright spring-coloured eyes, with freckles like constellations dotting his thin cheeks. He has a sweet smell of his own, of baby powder and child sweat. Katsuro’s fussy tonight, shifting about in Izuku’s lap, his eyes flicking up to Izuku’s face, and then over to Bakugou’s, who snarls, “What the he – ck are you looking at, kid?!” whenever their eyes meet.

Bakugou’s being rather nice, by his standards.

Izuku remembers, with fondness - and a touch of exasperation - Bakugou’s knack of making children cry, made especially apparent during his younger years.

“Katsuro,” Izuku says into Katsuro’s curls, feeling fluffy hair tickle his cheek, “Be good, okay?”

Either Katsuro’s intelligent for his age, or maybe it’s something in Izuku’s voice, but whatever the case, the little boy settles down, shifting so that his face is buried in the crook of Izuku’s neck. Izuku’s body adjusts, by itself, to gently cradle the child in his arms. He’s asleep within minutes, breathing deeply, and although Izuku has to grimace at the drool staining his shirt, he makes no move to wake Katsuro up.

“Damn brat,” Bakugou says, resuming his pushing once more – but his voice can almost pass for being gentle, turned down to about a tenth of its usual intensity, “Told you it was past your bedtime.”

XXX

His name is Katsuro.

He’d been abandoned at the hospital, a note left in his pocket. One of those safe havens so young girls would stop flushing their babies down the toilet or throwing them away in Dumpsters behind a MacDonald’s. The law didn’t say how old, or how young, a child had to be to receive haven.

Even undernourished, most three-year-olds aren’t babies by any standards.

“But we had to take this little guy in, you know?” The nurse – she’d brightly introduced herself as Momoi to both Izuku and Bakugou – says quietly, now more dejected than she’d originally been. She’d been sprinting down the hallways, frantic and panicky, but had stopped with a cry of relief when she noticed Katsuro in Izuku’s arms. “He didn’t have any personal belongings with him, just the clothes on his back, and we couldn’t just turn him out onto the streets. The social worker’s coming in on the weekend to bring him to an orphanage, after the Christmas Holidays.”

“I see,” Izuku replies just as quietly, his arms unconsciously tightening around the still-sleeping Katsuro.

Bakugou clicks his tongue, but there’s a hint of sadness behind the steel. He runs a finger down Katsuro’s cheek, soft and smooth.

XXX

“Red Riot, Icy Hot Make Special Appearance at UA Sports Festival.”

Izuku hears the familiar garbled sounds, a hodgepodge mix of simple consonants and vowels. He blinks open bleary eyes to find Bakugou reading the morning papers in a low undertone, with Katsuro settled comfortably in his lap. Katsuro’s scrawny arms hold clutch on tightly to an All-Might action figure, strangely reminiscent of the one that Izuku had carried around with him all those years ago. His is faded now, worn beyond measure surely, but the memory is still vivid and real in his mind.

“Mamma?”

“No, that’s Half and Half.”

“Mmamam.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I’ve got a meeting with him on Friday.”

“Mamama.”

“Fine, Red Riot’s not so bad, but I’m not gonna tell him that to his face.”

Izuku smothers a smile, huddles deeper into the warm cocoon of his blankets. A part of him finds this surprisingly domestic, a strange longing permeating the deepest recesses of his body to catch and hold on to this feeling of warmth and happiness.

X X X

When Bakugou comes to pick Izuku up on the day of his discharge from the hospital, Izuku is staring down at the sleeping child, wanting to say goodbye, but at the same time, unable to bring himself to. The words clog up his throat, making speaking near impossible.

The white curtains have been drawn, sunlight filtering through and creating golden, dappled patterns on the floor. In his crib, Katsuro lies, sound asleep, breathing deeply. His mouth is open and freckles scatter his nose and cheeks.

Izuku reaches down into the crib, a calloused finger tracing Katsuro’s cheek, as soft as a baby’s should be. A second finger joins his, their owner’s hardened red eyes softening, gentling into an expression of unspoken tenderness.

Even in sleep, a tiny starfish hand reaches out and clings onto Izuku’s for dear life, holding on like a lifeline, as if trying to reassure himself that he hasn’t been abandoned again.

His name is Katsuro. He’s three. Abandoned, unwanted, cast aside at a hospital, his fate sealed as another of Japan’s nameless orphans.

Izuku raises his eyes to meet Katsuki’s.

A whole conversation passes between them in that moment.

It’ll be hard.

I know.

What if we can’t do it?

We will. We’ll do it together.

X X X

“I still don’t see why I have to wear this.”

“Kacchan, it’s a family tradition!”

“Bullshit! You made that tradition up yesterday!”

“Language, Kacchan! We have a baby here now!”

Bakugou tugs grumpily at the collar of his maroon sweater, emblazoned and festooned with a cheerful green pattern of christmas trees. But at the mention of their son, Bakugou looks over at Katsuro, illuminated by the bright lights of their artificial Christmas tree. His chubby fingers catching and holding onto a sparkly ornament.

“We’re going to put that on the tree,” Izuku admonishes, but his voice is closer to a coo, devoid of anything close to criticism. In his arms, he cradles a child, dressed in a sleep-suit decorated to look like a reindeer. “Do you wanna try?”

“Mamamamm.”

Bakugou snorts. “Think that’s a yes.”

“In a minute,” Izuku promises Katsuro, and holding their baby safely against him, leans over and kisses his partner on the lips.

“Merry Christmas, Kacchan.”

[argotmagazine-blog]

Dreaming in Silver

There is a figure at the edge of the playground, standing perfectly still and silent. Were it not for the little tells—the way the October wind teases her hair, ripples her dress—she very well might be part of the architecture, like the benches or the swing set. That’s the trouble with being human. There will always be little clues that reveal our humanity.

There is only one family remaining at the park. The time for visiting parks is nearly over; winter is just around the corner. Yet the children run, shouting and laughing while they skin their knees. At first, they do not pay the figure any mind. After a while, the oldest child, a girl of about ten, stops and stares.

“Holy shit,” she says. Her mother shouts “Young lady!” from the picnic table where she watches, wearily and warily. “Sorry, Momma!” the girl responds.

As she approaches the figure, there is wonder in her eyes. “You’re real,” she says. More a statement of fact, than a question.

The figure does not move, does not respond. She is tall, silver from head to toe, her face hidden behind a masquerade mask. A basket is clutched in her hands, and at her feet, a bowl with a few loose bills inside.

By this point, her three brothers have joined her. They stand in wonder around the figure.

“Move!” says the youngest, his pudgy cheeks flushed with excitement.

“She can’t move,” the sister responds. “She’s one of those statue things.”

“I’m gonna kick her,” says one of the middle children, matter-of-factly and without malice.

The sister shoots an arm out, glaring at her brother. “Don’t you touch her.”

“But she won’t move!”

“That’s her job, dummy!”

They stand around her for a while, debating the finer points of the statue’s existence, with particular focus on what kind of weirdo would go stand in an almost-empty park painted head-to-toe in silver? They lose interest after a while, and they return to the playground. That’s one of the joys of childhood; things may be transient, may hold attention for only a moment, but children lose none of their joy from the friction of brevity.

Soon enough with his siblings distracted, the youngest child approaches. He looks up at the silver woman. There is real wonder on his face.

“She’s a fairy,” he says to no one in particular, his voice painted with awe. His grubby fist unclenches, releasing a handful of pennies and one nickel hitting the bottom of the bowl.

Slowly, the statue lowers herself down to the boy’s level, reaching into her basket. There, on her outstretched palm, is a small scroll tied with a purple ribbon. He takes it in the greedily curious way of children. The statue smiles, putting a finger to her lips, and then returns to the same pose she has held all morning.

Of course, he does not heed her request for secrecy. He runs towards his older siblings, shouting, “She moved, she moved!”

“Bullshit!” says his sister, earning another “Young lady!” from their mother, this one more forceful. “Sorry, Momma, but he’s lyin’ again!”

“I ain’t lyin’, she moved!” he insists. “She gave me this!”

As the siblings gather around to look at the little scroll and she is sure that there are no wandering eyes to witness, the corners of the silver woman’s lips—my lips—turn into a smile once again.

***

When I was a little kid, I went to California for the first time. I remember two things about that trip. The first was I was told I would earn “my wings” on the flight. Three-year-old me was dazzled by visions of getting to run around San Francisco with full-size Buzz Lightyear wings. It was a bit of a blow to discover said “wings” comprised of a little metal pin. Nonetheless, I wore it with pride. Besides, I got to see inside the cockpit and even sit in the pilot’s seat, which was a pretty great consolation prize.

The second thing that I remember was the statue. There standing near a fountain, surrounded by pigeons, was a man. He was painted bronze from the tip of his top hat to the toes of his shoes, and he stood stock-still. One of my parents slid a dollar into my hand and told me to offer it to him.

Timidly, I held out my open palm, and the statue jolted to life. He smiled down at me, performed a robotic dance during which he plucked the dollar from my hand. Then he returned to his stationary pose.

I was enchanted standing there with the statue towering above me, once again silent and still. I was in love.

Love later found me sharing a bed with another woman for nearly five years.  I figured my life was as good as over when I suddenly found myself sleeping on my best friend’s couch instead. A three-year engagement had crumbled nearly overnight. Now I was living out of a backpack and stealing food from Western Michigan University. I had not attended Western in three years, but that didn’t stop me from smuggling gallon freezer bags into their dining halls and walking out with enough spaghetti and stir fry to feed the multitudes outside Bethsaida.

To say I was somewhat despondent for the first few days would be an understatement. But soon after I had a revelation. My life falling apart meant my life no longer had any boundaries. I had nothing to lose. I was free to do all of the stupid, wonderful bullshit I always wanted to do and never been able to due to domestic obligation. So, I ordered a silver wig and makeup online, took a trip to Goodwill for clothes which I then covered in silver spray paint. I was reborn.

I remember the odd looks I got the first day I dressed up; the bus driver looking at me with suspicion as I, silver from top to bottom, sat with a basket full of scrolls in my lap. Kalamazoo, Michigan is a pretty small city so far as cities go. While you see plenty of weird things on the buses—I once saw a woman carrying a stack of no less than five VCRs—my appearance was certainly novel.

For someone who’s always wormed her way into the spotlight, I’ve always had a hard time when it comes to being noticed. I used to hide those insecurities behind eccentricities, things like wearing a top hat casually. Oddness had always been a shield. However as I felt people’s eyes trying to peel back my metallic layers, I realized that this was different. This new face that I had painted on, this new identity, was no shield. It was a shelter. The only difference, I realized, between a bridge and a wall is the angle from which it is built. I was no longer a stranger in a strange land, but part of the architecture of our world. I was humbled.

The first day, I decided to establish myself on Western’s campus. There was a certain kind of cosmic rhyme, I thought, returning to the school I had left. Only this time, I returned not as a student but as part of the campus landscape.

One of the interesting things about standing completely still, your only interaction with the world in your direct line of sight, is that you realize how little other people notice. As I stood by the flagpoles in the center of campus, hundreds of students passed me. Only a handful noticed me. I even saw one of my friends, who passed by less than ten feet away. When I asked him later about the statue, his puzzled response was “What statue?”

There’s something about the lack of acknowledgment that makes any attention or response morph into a holy act, a kind of communion. I stood there on the first day for maybe four or five hours and earned about ten dollars. Each rumpled bill was worth far more than any paycheck I ever received.

On the way back to my friend’s apartment, I was accosted by a group of Jehovah's Witnesses who were apparently delighted by me. They laughed and tried to get me to talk. My silence only seemed to excite them more. They didn’t offer any change, but eventually they did give me some literature. The concern for my mortal soul did not go unappreciated.

When I arrived back at my friend’s apartment, I began to sob, my tears cutting streaks through my silver makeup. They were not the hard, razor-edged tears that I cried every night since the breakup, but a fountain of raw joy. It was, I realized, the first time I had really felt alive in more than a year.

And so she came to be.

The original name I came up with was “The Tarnished Poet.” But after my best friend posted a blurry picture of me walking through her backyard with no context online, the good people of Facebook bestowed upon me a much simpler (and far less pretentious) moniker. “The Silver Lady.”

My first name came from the core of my performance. I would go to the used bookstore in the basement of the library, find poetry books that looked as if they had been there the longest. I especially enjoyed finding local poetry collections that had been printed, and then forgotten, years ago. My favorite was a chapbook of poems by fifth graders that had been published sometime in the early Aughts. I would then gently tear out each poem, roll it into a scroll, and tie it with a ribbon. For everything that was placed in the bowl at my feet, be it a handful of bills or a single penny, I would hand the person a poem. One day, a child gave me a piece of candy. They received a poem in return.

Art does not exist in isolation. It is a metaphysical conversation. Acting as a gateway for these fragments of writing, the little pieces of themselves strangers poured onto paper, made me feel connected to everything around me in a new and humbling way. For as long as I could remember, it had been my dream to change the world. There in those moments handing out scrolls, I realized we change the world every day. It’s not the magnitude of our impact, but the grace with which we move.

On perhaps the second or third day, a girl timidly dropped a dollar into my bowl. She shuffled away quickly as soon as I handed her a poem. About a half hour or so later, she returned. Tears shone in her eyes as she smiled and met my gaze, which she had not done before. She said “thank you” before dropping a five dollar bill at my feet and scuttling off. It was the only money I made that afternoon. I never felt richer than I did that day.

However as nice as it would be to pretend the money didn’t matter at all, we unfortunately live in a reality where that is not the case. My attempts to find an actual job were fruitless. With no steady income, there was no way for me to get an apartment of my own. Ultimately, I ended up in the homeless shelter due to my presence in my best friend’s apartment causing conflicts with her roommate. The details of that stay are a tale for another day. Suffice it to say it was a nightmare. Yet there was a shimmer of hope even then. As I left the shelter each morning, I would don my true refuge, painting my face and putting on my mask and stepping out into the cold. Even as the first winds of winter whipped around me, I felt safe in my silver skin.

My body had long been a source of shame and fear for as far as my memory reaches back; a treacherous scrapyard I needed to navigate with care to avoid slicing myself open against my own sharp edges. The dysphoria flowing through my veins turned my body into a broken down carnival of fear and loathing.

But to stand there, silver, silent and still, my only purpose simply being, was an exercise in existence. I could feel my atoms touch those of everything around me. For the first time I did not feel apart from the world, but a part of it. I felt like a tiny grain of sand somewhere along the shores of time. That smallness did not make me feel worthless or insignificant. It made me feel humbled.

There were no screams of anguish from between my legs, no worries about how much I weighed or how my body occupied space. After all, a statue’s only purpose is to exist, to take up space, to be exactly what it is. For the first time, my body became not a straight-jacket but an instrument. I had been acting and performing since high school, but this was something different. It was a becoming, a transfiguration. I was not playing a statue. I was the statue, a sculpture I carved from my own flesh. I transformed the raw elements of my body into something that made me feel real and beautiful.

After I secured an actual job, I did not stop standing on street corners. When I eventually did, it was due to the weather when it became too frigid to perform safely. I’ll admit there were a few days where I should not have been out in the elements but gave myself freely to them nonetheless. It was my statueing, in conjunction with a fundraiser one of my friends set up, that allowed me to finally escape the shelter. At the shelter, we were required to relinquish our paychecks to the management. So I carefully kept the money I made performing in a folded sock. Eventually, I scraped together enough for a down payment on a place. Hand in hand with my silver lover, we broke free.

We made plans to take the bus to Chicago and perform there, but they were cut short by an accident. I landed in a wheelchair for about four months. As a result, I still walk with a cane, and it has left our future together an uncertain. I do not know if I will ever be able to stand unfettered the way I once did before. But I know that I trust her to guide me where I am supposed to go.

She is a part of me, of course. There is no Silver Lady without a V.F. Thompson. But she is also something far greater than an outward manifestation of myself. She is my savior. She danced my way in a metallic dream and offered her palm. It would be easy to say that she saved my life, but I think that’s only half-true. In many ways she killed me. I am not the woman I was when I first painted my face and stepped out into the world. Nor is the life I am living the life I lived then. She taught me that we live and die a thousand times before we leave this world. It’s how we come back to life that truly defines us.

The first time I dipped a sponge in silver powder and put it to my lips, her mouth pressed against mine and breathed the universe into my lungs. Every beat of my heart sends liquid metal swirling through my veins.

What a joy it is, she whispered to me, to simply be.

V.F. Thompson is a Mid Michigan-based writer of odd curiosities and curious oddities. Though she lives mostly in the realm of fantasy, she occasionally dabbles in real life. When not writing, she enjoys comic books, trying new recipes, and a well-brewed cup of Earl Grey. She currently resides in Kalamazoo, which she assures you is a real place. Follow her on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.