Normally when people say they were born in the wrong time, it's because they long for the presumed simplicity of bygone eras. They believe our current time is too busy or gaudy or jaded or graceless and think they would be happier if born earlier.
For me, it's just a matter of economics. I could have been in a freak show.
That's right! I could have traveled the country with people with conjoined twins and people with claws for hands and anyone else set as an oddity in society. I could have been part of this strange, yet mysterious community, living in a vardo and eating at battered old tables set up outside whatever place we decide to camp for the night.
When we rolled into town, our tents would be set up just outside the regular circus. They would be of darker hues, with less glitz, but certainly with more appeal. The freak show, after all, would be the thing that people came to see. They would shift their feet, their eyes darting back and forth to make sure no one who shouldn't see them did. They would clutch their tickets nervously and when they were handed over to the admittance box, the tickets would be damp with sweat.
The people would shuffle down the cause way, listening to barkers trying to seduce them into different tents. Adrenaline would flood their bodies, pulses racing at the thrill of the dark monsters being so close. So so close.
As they drew near, they would hear my barker outside. "Come see her, fattest woman alive. Come see her sitting on a bed, eating chicken legs and cake. Watch the fat woman as she runs her thick, greasy hands over her face. MARVEL at the mammoth breasts, low and sagging, giant in size as they rise like mountains over her ponderous belly! Look at the vast growth on her arm. Is it another breast? Another head? What is she?"
And they would stop, intrigued by his words. Lust and revulsion would rise up and do battle in their bodies, somehow both winning at the idea of me. Everyone liked to gawk at a woman. Everyone loved to see how distorted human proportions could be. They would nod to themselves, or perhaps exchange a mocking laugh with their fellows, offer money to my barker, and walk into my tent.
There I would sit, eating as promised, propped up on an old mattress with blankets taken from a whore house after a fire sale. The bed frame, rusted out metal, would squeak and protest as I shifted around, trying to get comfortable. My plate of chicken and cake would sit beside me and as much as I tried to keep the flies off of it, there would always be one or two lurking.
My dress would be low cut to show off my breasts, off the shoulder to show off the growth. Sweat stained, grease stained, and mud stained from the attack of an earlier customer, the dress would have thick seams to keep me in, and smell like all hell. I would hate it.
The tent, even in winter, would be hot. The smell of working class men and of animal feces and of me would pervade the room with musty and unsavory musk. It would be the kind of smell you didn't want to enjoy, but somehow, secretly did. I would sweat, always, despite how much I didn't want to. The sweat would drip from my hair into my eyes, stinging them. It would drip into my mouth, salting my lips and tongue.
They would laugh at me. They would say the most horrible of things. They would throw things and me. And some of them . . . some of them would be quiet and just stare. Later they would go to the barker and request private time with me. They would slip him extra money and I would always go. The money would always be good.
Even some of the ones who laughed would come back later. They would explain as they removed their shirts that they only laughed because they were shocked or because their friends did. They would tell me I was beautiful.
It would be a hard life, but it would be my life. I would never be truly known by people, just a freak in the freak show. Just an object of ridicule or pity or lust. I would be entertainment, curiosity, and the subject of whispered morbid stories.
You might think this is a strange thing to consider, but it's really not. You see, those looks that I would get when people viewed me on display at the freak show . . . I get them from people all the time. All of that dark emotion, all of that objectification, all of the resentment and fear and even lust? Yes, I see that in people's faces every day.
The difference is, in the freak show, I'd get paid for it.
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