Challenge #01481-D020: Carry the Light
'I don’t want my life to imitate art, I want it to be art." - Carrie Fisher -- RecklessPrudence
Auntie Mame is famous for saying, "Life is a smorgasbord, and most poor souls are starving to death." But even she would believe that Taerl Vincetti was taking things a bit too far.
She could have been the living embodiment of vanity, were it not for her belief that her life was a performance piece for all who happened to be in her audience. Her life was her work, and her body was simultaneously a canvas and a tool for display. She expected nothing, and gained everything.
Taerl was not as rail-thin as one might imagine of such a performer. She danced, she created, she lived in art, and so she kept her body fit. Not thin, not fat, but fit. She maintained her body with a strict regimen of diet and exercise. And, once a year, she would add to the artwork on her skin.
No matter what her business was, she would move as if it were a performance. Some days, she would dance around the commercial concourses whilst she did her shopping. Some days, she would put on a character, and, in costume, be that person all day. She wouldn't even answer to her own name. Some days, she would do nothing but stay very still, wherever she decided to settle.
And others, she would play an instrument wherever she wandered.
When she wasn't in character, she spoke her mind. If she couldn't remember your name, she would call you 'dearest' and sound like she meant it. Her goal, she said, was to spread joy and wonder in the world. To live every day as if it were an artwork.
She always helped the ameteurs. Those who were doing soul-song projects, as she called them. She would be a part in flesh, in economy, in guidance, whenever she met the people who were obviously trying something new. One who actually worked for the entertainment industry if she could act in a production for them.
Ms Vincetti said, "I'm already acting, dearest. And since you get paid, you must give some Hours to charity." And she suggested a cause that helped and supported citizens with mental difficulties.
What nobody knew, until the day after she died, was that that particular cause was close to her own soul. Taerl Vincetti fought her own mind, for every day of her life. When she could no longer bear to be herself, she put on a character and spent her time as them until the desire to harm herself subsided. Tattoos and piercings sated her desires to feel pain. And her performances... exorcised her inner demons. All, as it turned out, on the advice of her therapist and life-partner.
Those who stand in the darkest place, she said, will eagerly carry a lantern so others don't fall.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / adam121]
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