The Gold Room, or the Gilded Room as it is known nowadays, is a room that anyone can enter, but not everyone is welcome. This room was coveted as an exclusive lounge with walls made of solid gold and tables made of crystal, at least,that'ss what they claim it is. To have a seat in the golden room is to have a privilege only gained by sheer luck, by entering at the right time,e or if regular patrons allow you to simply sit among them.

Many thirst for a seat at the table, trampling over one another for a spot among the special ones, the beautiful people. But as for others, well, we don’t often hear from the others, do we?

I was lucky enough, at one point, to be welcomed in the gilded room, but it was different. A showman named Vulpes had actually beckoned me to his side at one point and pulled aside a chair; I wasn’t really sitting at the table, but was happy enough to sit among them. I marveled at the splendor of the room around m. Theyy drank from bottles labeled Dusche Saft, which sounded fancy. I asked for a glass of the stuff, but was told “no” by;Vulpes, they said I wasn’t ready.  

They were talking about the attention economy at that time and I wanted to add to the conversation, but when I tried to speak up, they all looked at me and talked even louder. I then politely stated 

“Excuse me?”

That was a mistake; they stared at me, drilling holes into my eyes, making me sorry for making a peep in the first place. I simply looked down at the floor, still feeling the eyes drill into me. I then started receiving notes handed to me by waitresses written on monogrammed napkins stating that I was too strange to be among them, that I should be elsewhere, and that I didn’t deserve to be among them. But I simply stayed in my chair, not really at the table but not really absent. What really did irk me was the fact that everyone was discussing how “inclusive” their fanbases and communities are and how they felt like they were part of one big family. I did at one point visited Vulpes’s club and saw something that was themed after a Japanese Shinto Shrine. I kept my seat but talked among the patrons…I felt included! I actually finally found a place to belong!

In not too long, we threw parties (I didn’t drink the Dusche Saft) and we played parlor games together. But still, I received notes from someone in the Gold Room that I would never be wanted. Then one day, I was no longer welcome; the bouncer barred me from visiting the lounge. I asked Vulpes what was going on, but they simply said that I “acted too strangely” to be in their community and that I should “kindly move on”. I was furious, none of my friends from the club would talk to me, and pretended I didn’t exist. I dashed back into the Gold Room the next day and peeked inside past the bouncer blocking my path, there was someone else sitting in my chair.  I was never welcome in the Gold Room, I was never wanted for my broken parts, I felt hopeless. 

I went back to my room and tore at my blue longsleeve and ripped out my hair in anguish, I then received one last message slipped under my door stating…

“This was for your own good, and for our own.”

The next day, I went up to the main office and requested a new Sona. It was done, but I needed a new set of clothes after tearing myself apart, the buttonup shirt and woolen vest hid the scars all over my arms and chest, the captain’s cap I found in the lost and found suited me well, but also covered the bare patches from me ripping my hair out.  

I felt an odd sense of relief to be in the new room, it was away from the Gold Room and from… them.

I built myself from the ground up, with my cap becoming a metaphorical crown. I built a community designed to make people belong not just feel like they belong. My speeches and shows inspired many, I was much better off in my own club, welcoming and giving community to those who needed it. The friends I gathered along the way brought me up and I brought them up, we were all…family… 

And I was happy.

But then, I received an exclusive invitation to the Gold Room. I flew into a rage.

NOW I was worthy of their presence

NOW I was worth their time

NOW they gave a shit because of my larger following.

My friends said they didn’t want me to go, but I had an idea.

I took the stage and looked down at the audience who previously rejected me, everyone there didn’t know who I was but said I was special, destined for this role and was…beautiful. They even offered a glass of that mysterious drink to me, the glass flute of which I was holding as I tilted the microphone and adjusted it. I spoke into it…

“Evening ladies and gentlemen… You all claim to be inclusive, you all claim to be righteous, but what about those who you have trampled to the dust and forgotten in the pursuit for your “perfect” community?”

I tipped over the flute, spilling its contents onto the cedar wood stage. Everyone gasped in shock. And I then removed my cap and everyone realized who I was, their stares of shock turned into outrage.

“Remember me? You said I wasn’t special, and now you say I’m special. You said I’d never be wanted, and now you can try asking my community who I GENUINELY care about. What is a community if you exclude people for the most trivial things? You call them shrines, shrines to the egotistical cretins who call themselves leaders.”

“Stop it.”

They said.

“We won’t have you threatening our patrons.”

I retorted…

“If you consider me telling the truth to be a threat, then how does that make you look?”

I took the bottle of liquor and poured its contents into a potted plant, which made the plant shrivel up and turn a dark burnt brown. Dropping the bottle, I walked off stage and went back home. I then received a message stating I was banned from the Gold Room for “threatening” the patrons. I also later received news that a majority of the patrons got drunk off of the premium alcohol and began tearing each other apart, staining the golden walls in their blood.

I then heard rumors that the Golden Room, was not what it seemed. There were even whispers that it was constructed by the powers that be to distract from what really matters, which depends on you.