writing_shadows

As requested by Akonken:

Capital letters are very important. As an eminent author once pointed out it makes the difference between talking about the end of life and the tall thin fellow with the shadowed face and the antiquated agricultural implement. The man in the mirror was still a stranger, like some half-forgotten holiday romance, familiar yet distant, another time and another place. He traced the lines of his mouth and found the stitches there, nothing much had changed it seemed, he was somewhat lesser somewhat more. No more a Scarecrow but always a patchwork man, an imitation of the real thing.

Little victories that was it, a chance to turn away from the path, to run amongst the wolves and for one brief moment to be free before tumbling down to the ground below. It was a fine fiction for a time, to think he had chosen this life for himself, enjoyed it even, but to do so would be to submit to accept the role thrust upon him. No more. Now he was his own person again, with all the horrors that entailed.

A mask would never serve for a face, no matter how finely crafted. It was a shell at best, a thing to be outgrown and discarded, but what then? Must he wait until the next convenient cage was found? He flexed his hand, felt the fingers twitch and the tiny whirr of gears. Had it been worth it? All the pain, all the soul searching that had lead him so far.
More than rag and bone, more than symbols and straw he was a construct of memory, a being of blood, sweat and tears. Joshua smiled his crooked smile he was, in his own twisted way, a self made man.