Microphones spreading our voices towards eternity, frozen online. Idolatry part-time, a mythology for the Today. All the world a stage, plastic fused into skin. A sigh of relief comes, one of doing what I love for a living. In place of my legs are a wiry, industrial mass of prongs, spider legs that never get tired. Wings are nailed into the back my ribs.

I woke up each following day to a day passing slower than the last, the seconds barring me entry. I lie on Ring’s lap as we rewatch shows that change how they’re seen despite never changing how they look.

“Damn, guess you’re gonna be pretty busy from today on, huh?”

“Mmhmm! Don’t worry, you’ve seen how much work I can handle, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ve seen what it does to people.” A pause, a silence leaving out what she’s been echoing the past few days. Maybe I can’t handle the workload. Maybe I can’t handle dissociating. Maybe I ought to wait it out a bit more. It’s a cautiousness rooted in concern. I’ve seen her crunch through more work when her deadline looms over the edge. A sigh, a sentence respoke. “I mean, you-”

A sigh. A change of pace.

“You’ll take care of yourself, right? I know how much you’ve got your heart into this, and you know how much work it takes to earn someone a trip to the doctor. Just, promise me you won’t overwork yourself, alright?”

A tiny whirring inside of me, a movement. My eyes leaking out dewdrops. It must be morning already. A giggle.

“Of course.”

Weeks pass by in a blur. The novelty of being picked has started wearing off, being replaced by a hardier, more permanent glow that comes from being proud of the work put into each performance.

My birth name, birth month, birthplace, all crumbled into dust.

A person of my own within a person for everyone, isolated within a cultural wall people have to opt in to jump over. I am finally myself. Lost in a crowd. No longer a personality by myself, a channel with me and only me on the outside, but a part dissolved within solution, blending seamlessly with the others to form a perfect, cohesive whole. If we practice hard enough.

Downing half a liter of water, a let out a scream of relief as we pause practicing for our next routine.

A hardwood floor, a room so wide and so vacant that a step of one foot reverberates long enough to meet the step of the other. Speakers line the ceiling. Rails line the walls.

In the room already are a few others, sharing their life funneled through a phone camera, sprawled on the floor, taking a breather. Coming before me, they all look around my age, they all look ageless. Different aspects of personality, each of them. My first lesson under a new name, a sequence I’ve done millions of times before. One is not born, but rather becomes, an idol.

Hop, step, a pirouette and a twirl.

Hours of practice, melting away as I prep for tomorrow.

Today, we’re recording our practice routine. Letting our fans know what it’s like, now that we’re all part of the same group, how we interact, what we’re like offstage, what life was like in between the week we were gone. Tomorrow, there’ll be a fan meet going on. My heart pumps to a rhythm so fast that everything else slowed down to compensate.

Mechanical clicks, an LED pin.

The camera focuses on me.

Smile.

Today, my hair’s pink. Tomorrow, it’ll be lavender.