Stayin’ Alive

Stayin’ Alive

By Olivia Camillin

- Excerpt of a book

Part of the show was playing tricks to feel like I was living. See, audiences don’t want to see some random little girl dying in front of their eyes. They’d say, ew, can’t she perk up a little bit? For sure she’s ruining the atmosphere. Then, I wouldn’t get paid. Then, I’d lose my place. And I was already so low on the food chain, to lose my place would mean to lose my home. Sure, my home was a stage with strings and fake animals and beer made out of bubbles and grass painted on and houses made out of ticky tacky, but it was my home. I could stay on the strings as long as I needed to, to make the audience happy. Until they get bored and go home. That could be hours, days, months, years. So, you have to look alive. And not just human, not just surviving, but real. Real, human, flesh filled with the joy of life and other such fictitious expressions. I had to be all of the fictitious expressions, personified. To look alive, one must feel alive. How does one feel alive when she is hanging by four threads and collapsing on her ankles, day after day? Easy, find someone in the crowd. 

The crowd is all strangers. Some come every day to watch the strings pick me up and put me down. Some come once a week. Some get kicked out of the club when they stop showing up. Most people only skip a few days in the year. The only way they miss out on seeing my show is if they can’t leave their beds. There was one stranger who came every single day. One who never heckled, well, at the time I thought he never heckled. Not me, at least. All those people throwing rotten tomatoes and yelling the most wretched things, planting fake kisses in the form of compliments with a bitterness in the middle: he was my escape. Or, so I thought. Of course, I could never leave the stage - I was the only act people wanted to see. When I did a good job, various members of the crowd would yell louder, meaner things, or just leave the room. Usually, it was the same strangers who got restless when I did what they wanted, and it always made tears come to my eyes, it made my movements jerkier, and it sent me on a quest to find out what I did wrong. And I’d look in the reflection in the eyeglasses of the audience members, and see what I was doing wrong. 

Sometimes, the moves they made me do were too hard, or I wasn’t ready, or my head became too heavy and I’d fall. I’d tip right over like a kettle onto a toddler’s head. Strangers would gasp. Oh, it made me feel horrific inside, made my stomach churn, when they’d gasp. And someone would hiss violently from above, jerking my strings, see, now you’ve made them upset. Look at what 

you’ve done. It always made people leave, when I failed. It made the moves harder when I already knew I was failing. The encouraging spectators would get impatient, tapping their feet and checking their watches. Sometimes, they’d even shoot me a sorry glance and leave. They’d barely ever come back once they left. However, for every kind stranger I lost, I gained the mean ones back. When I was failing, they’d come right up the front, as if they only left to purchase refreshments. They’d show me their rotten tomatoes and they’d say See, I’d never throw these at you. They’re not for you. I’d never throw a rotten tomato at you. A lot of times, spectators would place bets on when I’d fail, or challenge each other to jump on the stage and tear my clothes while I was getting back on my legs. Strangers always wanted to see what was under my clothes,

no matter what I wanted. No matter how I acted or what my costume looked like, someone always said something about what was under my clothes. 

My balance is not so good without the strings, they’d never let me walk without the strings. When the upstairs people who help me with my strings have gone to sleep, that’s when the mean strangers would find me. They always wanted the same thing, and I never had any way to stop them from taking it. But when the upstairs people come back, they know what’s happened, and they try to cheer me up by pretending they don’t know. They look at me with wide eyes and almost-smiles, their shiny teeth so comforting. You are lucky to have upstairs people at all, they would say. 

But my favourite strangers never placed bets. They would arrive and leave at the right time every day, and they’d stare at me with no hatred. They’d never yell. They’d never throw rotten tomatoes - well, only if their friends threw one first - but hardly ever, you know. Sometimes, they’d smile. But mostly, they’d stand at the back, and gaze silently in wonderment. I had one stranger in particular I liked. He’d stay all through the show. He’d laugh when I was funny, and he’d cry when I was struck down. Over time, I began to notice what a beautiful stranger he was. Skin like a sturdy wooden wardrobe, I wanted to make it into a tent around my eyeline, blocking all the other strangers. His eyes, when they were all mine, looked just like the sky that I never saw. Not the painted one on the morning set, but the one that all the songs are about. But like the sky, his eyes were fickle. There were always other audience members who could move like him, communicate with him, play tricks that the strings kept me from playing. And that made me trip sometimes, but it was always fine for him because he always came back. His eyes always recentered on mine. The sets would change, the upstairs people became rough, or quiet, or mean, but he was always watching my show like a hawk. And that made me feel noticed, made me feel beautiful. He was all I ever thought about. And he made me feel alive. 

Over time, he would move closer to the stage. He saw in my eyes that I wanted him closer. I would have let him on the stage. I would have told them to find him his own set of strings. We would have been alive, for real. While he was moving, I forgot that this was the only trick I knew how to play. The only trick I can play. The one that fools me into thinking I am alive. I was allowed to look at strangers in the crowd, but I was not allowed to let strangers into my show. They watch the show. They just watch. And if he ever joined my show, the upstairs people said, he’d always be able to leave. Sometimes, he’d come all the way up to the stage, peek over the curves of the neon-green bushes, and whisper, I’d never leave your show. Your show is perfect for me. I’d love to live in your show. You are the best puppet I’ve ever had. So new, so shiny. The upstairs people would give shrill objections under the music. I sometimes didn’t listen. I know it’s wrong, but I believed the stranger. Stranger Danger, the upstairs people taught me before they started playing me. But I guess I forgot. He was so close to the stage I swore I felt his breath on my spaghetti legs. 

Sometimes there would be other strangers. Prettier ones. Ones who liked me more. Other strangers made him angry, and soon he blocked off the front of the audience. He was especially angry when the other strangers were women. He would say, They’d never understand your shows

like I do. They don’t know how to perform like you and I. and I’d look at him but what I really wanted was for him to join my show. He wouldn’t need to block the front row if he were on stage with me. He always said he needed to stay on the ground, it would be weird if he was on the stage. He was born an audience member, and the people who made him an audience member would be angry if he suddenly became like me. A puppet. And a lot of the time my stranger would look up and say I love you. I loved him. But he loved me like I was a puppet and I loved him like I was a girl. But I never was. One day, I finally got up the courage. I practised in my mind for days. I leaned down during a number and said to him I love you. He looked at me like I was foreign. It was true, I must have had a funny accent, or the wrong tone, because I had never tried to use my voice before. I wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t part of the show - all my parts were pre-recorded. His favourite strangers behind him giggled and snickered between themselves. I hoped they didn’t hear what I said. Would they still come and see my shows if they thought I had a voice? I worried that they wouldn’t respect me as a performer. Even though they threw tomatoes and yelled mean things, those tomatoes were my only food. Those words were my only conversations. He looked back at them, it seemed like they all heard. He told me it would be fine. They’d find a new performer. I didn’t deserve to be controlled like that all day long. I realised that my arms hurt, but only once he crept on the stage and cut my strings did I realise what a fool I was. I curtseyed, just like I used to do at the end of every show, except my arms were free, and my head could go around and around and around. The people stopped applauding, and finally, they left the building. 

Thank you. Thank you. And I will curtsey, I will be a good girl. I always will. That’s how I survive. No, that’s how I live.