Alien

[Author's note: Okay, I'm not sure if this is what was exactly what was meant to come through during this scene, and I'm not really all that fond of what I've got, but this is one of my responses to The Truman Show, finally. It's about what the Trumania scene and what I got from it. That's all I can really say on the matter.]

I wake up in the morning, same as always, to my life. The alarm blares at the bedside at the same time as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, for as long as I can remember. It's all the same as before, but different. I hit the off button on the alarm on the same clock that woke me up so many times before. Only now this is different clock. This clock is a lie. The clock itself is real, but it wakes me up to a fake morning with a fake amount of time to get ready for a fake job in a fake life. This clock is a liar. How many other liars are in my home?

I make my way to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, wash my face, the stuff I usually do in the morning. I know I'm being watched, so what else can I do but play along? I look up at my mirror. A liar like the clock, this one probably complete with a video camera. I stare at it, willing it to break the illusion. Nothing. Fine, I think. If you're going to watch me, I might as well put on a show. I pick up the soap, like a child artist with his sidewalk chalk. I draw a circle on the mirror, right around my reflection's head. A fishbowl? A helmet perhaps? A space suit. I complete the image and draw a little flag.

"I hereby proclaim this planet Trumania, of the Burbank galaxy."

 I look at my refection for a moment. Appropriate. My reflection and I had something in common; we were both stuck in an alien world.

"That one's for free," I say, wiping the soap off the mirror before I turn my back on the camera and leave.

Individual Abnormal

[Author's Note: What's this?! I finally managed to think of a response for Curious incident about a week or so after it was due?? Better late than never I guess. I had something else in progress before this actually, and that was going to be my project, but it was getting nowhere, so I finally decided to start over from scratch. I had to use a lot of near rhymes because I couldn't think of a proper rhyme that made sense in some places, and the near rhyme just sounded better in others. But yeah. This is a poem about how ironic it is that Christopher isn't well accepted in society because he's so 'weird' when the reality is, everyone is weird when you think about it. I mean, come on, if it's 'normal' to carry around a rabbit's foot or some other 'lucky' memento for superstitious reasons, but it's not okay for someone to have a superstition about the number of a color of cars that they pass on the way to school? And whatever happened to 'dare to be different'? Christopher may be the one person in the whole world who is completely honest, a trait that is seen as IDEAL, but people think this 'ideal trait' makes him a freak. He's got the math and science skills to become a great scientist or something, but he might not become one just because he can't read people expressions or tell a lie. People can't see past his 'condition' enough to see that at the end of the day, Christopher is a lot more like a normal person than anyone would admit. He just does stuff his own way. And that's what this poem is about.]

It is a bitter irony
That this, our society
That promotes individuality
Will not accept the different me.

“Dare to be different!” they all say
But when I do things my own way
The difference is like night and day
“Be like us, or you will pay.”

The price is real, and the cost high
And I can’t understand why
Most opportunities pass by
The life of one who can not lie.

Why would you ask me how I feel
If you want an answer that’s not real?
I cannot grasp a lie’s appeal,
So why is lying so ideal?

It’s fine to wear peculiar clothes
And wear jewelery through your nose.
It’s fine to put on silly shows
When a better time could have been chose.

But I can’t have a favorite color
Without being jeered at by another.
Everyone else can dream fame and flutter
But when I dream I’m called a nutter.

Liking math makes me a geek,
But it will help me find the life I seek
My superstition makes me a freak
Yet it’s fine to carry rabbits’ feet.

Of skills to offer, I have many.
Of lies I’ve told, I haven’t any.
But when they look, all people see,
Is my condition hanging over me.

We’re so alike, but they only see
What makes them more normal than me.