Clarence walked nonchalantly downtown, nothing especial to do, and while humming a tune he espied a placard between entrances to indeterminate establishments. It read:

Love Shopping? …seeking person or persons to pose in store incognito. $12 per survey.

He didn’t, particularly, love shopping, but the poster intrigued him. Was it a social experiment? A zealous competitor trying to undermine its opposition? A fraud baiting naïve-innocents with a non-fatiguing lure? But then again what was twelve bucks nowadays? A drink and a sandwich, and nothing fancy. So, how many survey’s were they talking about? Doing exactly what? His mind took a cynical bend.

He dialed the number walking. Having already paused too long, he took the call from a distance. Defensively posturing, as others might have presumed-- making a connection-- that he had been, maybe, suckered in.

He expected an automated service.

“Hello, Abott Marketing. How may I help you?” said a polite yet sultry voice of unspecified age, young but mature, or mature but youthful-- very attentive.

Now he felt a reproachful goofiness, a grown man seeking a shopping spree, not worth a dozen singles. And yet:

“Uh, yes. I’m responding to the advert posted,” he said feigning great interest, animating his tone a little extra, unnecessarily.

“What is your location?” she enunciated charmingly. Was he detecting an accent? He couldn’t quite place it. He craned his neck out from the shadow doorway he’d ducked into to better read the street sign:

“Corner of First and Boulder.”

“One moment…” and abrupt silence swept into music.

He started imagining how the face or body might match or contrast the vocal. The elevator tune raised an image of Jane Harlow, then turned a bit more Latina from Rita Hayworth to Victoria Monet, and then she was suddenly an overbearing trench with gorilla arms and low drawn hat not quite in any traditional shape, drooping and uniform grey, barely covering steely grey eyes.

“Ya’ rang?” he growled in a low hoarse whisper.

The wire went dead.

“Yeah. The… woman had me... on hold… “ he hung up and fixed his lip, emotionless.

“Ya’d be waitin’ a long time, heh, heh?” the cavalier sniggered at the dummy.

He had been taken in, a robocall, after all; and this was strange “personal” service.

Just how far was this farce going to evolve?

He kept a poker face. It was well-tanned apeman’s turn to make a false move.

She had everything going for her, skin deep. She presented gloriously on the stage as the designated beauty from her state. Her buttocks were firm and tented the bikini bottom just so. Her breasts were just so...healthy! Hanging perfectly at attention. Her waist was flat, the perfect connection between her upper and lower body.

Her legs were shapely, sinewy, and begging for the highest skirts possible. Her feet were lovely, like a child's. Her hands were porcelain. Her arms were cantilevers of poetry.

Her face would one day launch a thousand ships. While most noses are noticed immediately on a face, it's the attractive ones that are visited last, and she had impish upturned nose, on the perfect side of retroussé.

Her gait was a strut. Smooth and beckoning to follow, even into the gates of Hell, if she so ventured. As she walked, all of her parts syncopated in an interesting embellishment of her beauty.

This was the quintessential woman, skin deep. Who would care what was underneath?

While it's true the beautiful who walk among us compete in a fake competition for the eyes, age is the great equalizer. And while it's also true that beautiful people may be just as beautiful beyond skin deep and beyond, we train the beautiful to stay beautiful as long as they can, with fake adulation earned in fake contests.

She won the contest.

Deemed the most beautiful. In external appearance that belies the truth. And in twenty years, she'll catch up to everyone else on life's stage.

_______________________________

The pretty, young thing was an appetizer

Favored over a plain woman--no surprise there

But as they both got older

Similar wrinkles consoled her

For age was the ultimate equalizer

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, we agree that it's fake?"

"Ok, but clarify."

"A robot fakes actions, emotions, and people do too..."

"So, then, which is the 'bigger' fake?"

"Yes, now you've got it!"

"Hm. One is a fake faker. And the other an honest fake. Or the other way around, an honest faker and a fake fake...?"

"Is it a question of intent and motivation?"

"Say an actor fakes and gets lauded for it. A bot fakes and gets awards, rather it's manufacturers do... But, if an ordinary folk fakes..."

"Man--!"

"Phoney. Complete fake."

2024 OCT 07

Sarah Doty opened the waiting-room door and asked the seated young man if he was Eddie Xu. Eddie nodded affirmatively, and Sarah motioned for him to come into her office.

Sarah was a psychotherapist. Like all psychotherapists, her approach was eclectic; she dabbled in all the great ones: CBT, ACT, DBT, ... However, Sarah's personal favorite, her professional identity, if you will, was unconditional positive regard as espoused by Carl Rogers. Basically she listened, without judgement, and nudged her patients to keep talking, irrespective of what they said.

Sarah asked Eddie to sit in the reclining chair next to the bookshelf. Sarah sat down on a more formal chair about six feet in front of him.

Eddie immediately noticed an entire shelf of popular books on Eastern philosophy. There was an electric waterfall on the top shelf and a dreamcatcher hanging above it. Eddie began to get annoyed. He quickly shifted his position on the chair as well as his gaze.

When Sarah noticed Eddie's fidgeting, she asked if he felt comfortable.

"Yeah," Eddie lied.

After introducing herself briefly, Sarah asked Eddie what he'd like to talk about.

Eddie said, "Well... The internet. I spend so much time... Why do I spend so much time on the internet? Sometimes I just refresh my feeds over and over. I don't even like most of it. But I can't stop. I come up with plans to stop and I stick with it for a day or two. But then I'm back at it. I've done searches for help. Others write they have the same problem. But no ideas. Yesterday I went to the park, thinking I'd get outside and away. I wanted to climb a fence just to do something real. But I sat on a bench. Then I pulled out my phone again, like everyone else. I don't know how to..."

Eddie paused, not knowing what to say next.

Sarah held an open notebook in her lap. She made a quick note and then asked Eddie how his behavior made him feel.

Eddie replied, "I feel like a lab animal, like I'm programmed to do this, like everything in life is fake, like I'm fake...."

As Eddie continued, Sarah looked down at the iPhone she held at the bottom of her open notebook. She resumed browsing her Facebook feed, looking up at Eddie from time to time, nodding affirmatively as he spoke.

I am Fake

are you?

I smile, when I should have cried

I cry sometimes

for gifts of dirt

You are fake

I wish I could say

straight to your face

but no , I cant

because I am fake

We live in reality

but we all are fake

we hide in those skull of ours

we are fake

we want people to love us

when we show them hate

we are fake

we want golden limbs worth

a dime of soil

we all are fake

It's always a contest

in the darkness of my mind.

I'm always scheming,

planning,

trying to find a way to win.

Of course,

the contest is only real

inside of me.

No one else knows

what thoughts are swirling.

I use this contest

to make myself happy.

But it does the opposite.

I retreat further and

further,

into myself.

I let my emotions run

rampant,

but keep them contained.

I used to be the kind of girl

who would write a poem

about how she felt

and show it to whoever

made her feel

the way the poem described.

Now,

I can't even

admit half

the thoughts I have

even to a pad of paper.

I've been in this contest

since I can remember.

But what if winning

means losing myself?

Every shred

of who I used to be.

Because winning this

wretched contest,

pretending like I don't care,

like everything in the world is perfect,

might just cost me everything.