back

Imposter Syndrome

It's begun in earnest now. People filter in faster than you can possibly hope to count them. Like a cyclone, picking up speed and debris, a crowd begins to form. Crowds are a wild animal, you've learned. A singular, living, breathing creature. You feel a flash of fear, the evening's first, jump in your chest.

You move through the crowd, careful not to linger. You keep your distance. (The gears in your chest can be heard faintly if one gets close enough.) You find something to do with your hands. You check the clock again and again.

(You don't like crowds. You never have. On your own, you can pass as one of them easily enough. The details seem to match, so long as they can't see inside. You are neat. You are clean. You are quiet. Yet when lined up for comparison, as you are now, the differences become more apparent.)

The crowd has dozens, maybe hundreds of eyes, and right now it feels as though they are all staring at you. You worry you haven't dressed appropriately. You've always been behind the times. Sometimes you think that you're just waiting for everyone else to grow up and realise that you haven't been following along.

Someone approaches you. They speak. You nod. You never learned how to laugh. (If you were to open your mouth right now, there would be cobwebs.) And then someone might see, and might scream, and then where would you be? (People don't like to know that there is an imposter among them).

The person leaves. Another takes their place. You are not sure for how long this goes on. At some point, just as you feel ready to burst, the air begins to vibrate. The crowd grows impatient, gathering their things, waiting for the first person to leave.

You do not breathe a sigh of relief. You wave goodbye to no one in particular and resist the urge to start running on your way out. Every muscle in your neck is tight. (You are nothing more than a decoy. You cannot ever let them know. You are exhausted.)