Moulding the perfect soul is seldom an easy task, all I long for is a few lasting hours alone in front of a mirror.
I will make it shatter. The shards may slice my skin and live within me. My fingers are burdened with the journey down my throat and my heart now only contains flowers that wilt and rot and will never bloom. I want to borrow parts of their souls and pin them to my own, in the hopes of concealing each inch of imperfection that currently beholds me. I may give the pieces back eventually, in time, when mine has completely mirrored theirs and I no longer feel as if my soul is transparently floating within a sea containing bodies of nothing but perfection.
The process is complicated. How could I describe it? It’s like a ritual. I spy the features I desire, the shape of a limb here, the specific shade of skin there, and then I add them to a weighing pile of qualities that I believe would work. Then, I pick apart every tumour in a surgeon-like manner; every corrupt shard of glass that could potentially alter the nature of my soul.
I have lost count of the souls I have cloned in these passing years. My last project – well – I don’t even want to utter the phrase. It didn’t reach the level of ultimate triumph it should have. Oh well, we can all miscalculate from time to time. I’m in no rush… NO! I’m deluding myself once again – of course I’m in a rush. For all I know, it may take a lifetime.
With the obstacle of time, I begin to feel the strain of the task. My face is ashen, my lips are dry, and no creams or powders can seem to soothe it. But, I am nothing in my own tainted soul if not obsessive. A perfectionist through and through – my only redeeming quality. It gives me significant drive to do what I must. To complete my task with an efficiency that rivals no other mortal.
For such an execution, I must keep it simple – God! What an abhorrent phrase – because I can embellish only so many features at a time. In an ideal world, I could potentially exist in multiple versions of myself; multiple somethings that would not float but walk among that sea of perfect bodies, and never have to suffer the feeling of incompletion. Oh, to be whole.
Simplicity only elicited a new rush, because to achieve creation it must be done flawlessly. I do not want to appear rushed or harried with the efforts of my task. Collected is a better way to define how it will appear. I wish for those other souls to look upon mine and hiss with envy at the effortlessness of it all.
Because of my past negligence, I am inspired. A new mirror is discovered; something fresh, pristine. Something to shatter so its pieces may burrow under my skin and live within me. A shard of glass that will reflect the feature perfectly. It must consume me. And I must let it.
I ignore the current pallidness of my skin and begin the process. The ritual. I feel it spreading, replacing old and depleted fractions of my body. The poison is filtered, virulent depths infected in its wake as it rushes through my veins. I relish in its consumption, the feeling of it being synonymous with something holy. I am being blessed. There is no defining explanation for the transformation, other than some sort of divine elixir, that possesses the taste of heaven, and sinks into my pores and taints my blood, with the reshaping of my limbs and the glossing of my eyes. I am reborn.
I am at ease once again. The void is temporarily filled. I feel like a rose, recently sprouted, whose thorns prick your fingers and draw blood when you dare decide to touch it. The only privilege offered is to simply gaze at me – upon me. I am smooth and wholly sated.
The feeling doesn’t last long. It seldom does.
I begin to fracture and the shards begin to rust. Terrestrial forces attack me – their words and my thoughts seep through my skin and I am defenceless. They break through the barrier to my naked soul.
Gradually, the layers begin to peel like petals and the elixir exudes and leaks from my pores, where they drip and dance down my skin. Maybe they’re tears? I cannot tell.
I want to cower in the corner of my room. I am too weak to break the mirror. My fists strike and pound against the glass and yet barely graze it. It doesn’t even crack. God – it is agony. I cannot bear to look. The reflection frightens me, and my eyes stray from the alien being standing in my place.
I am hollow. My shell has cracked. I allow my eyes to turn and I stare at nothing. Moulding the perfect soul is seldom an easy task.
Rosie Crossthwaite
Rosie Crossthwaite is a first-year creative writing student from Manchester, studying at York St John University. Favouring Gothic themes of prose, she wrote this piece to dramatize the reality of perfectionism and the lengths society often goes to achieve those standards. Slightly inspired by Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein”, the protagonist attempts to create the ‘perfect being’, only to realise that their idea of perfectionism is both temporary and unattainable.
Image by Evelyn Bertrand on Unsplash