Chapter 1 - Unique

I was born cursed. Yes, cursed is exactly the right word. Although, as curses are both varied in nature and great in number, I feel that I must be more exact. I regret to say that I was born unique. How I detest the very word itself. I have often found myself going to great lengths to avoid uttering such a vile word. You can imagine my disgust when words such as “exceptional” came to be synonymous with it. What a perfectly terrible method of slaughtering what had previously been such a beautiful and elegant word.

Concurrently, I find myself wondering what sort of human being would have created the word to begin with. That is, of course, assuming that it was, in fact, a human being that created it. It does almost seem as if it were created by a demon of some sort. Yes, surely that is how such a word came into existence. Nothing so loathsome could have been spawned from anything of this earth. No, surely it was the doing of some demon who felt the need to offend his enemy, but could find no other word insulting enough. It is of the utmost offense to be called (if you will bear with me, for I must here speak its name) unique. But yes, I’m afraid to say, I was born unique.

Even as a child, I was made painfully aware of my curse. Despite my best efforts, I could never overcome it. It seemed that whatever quality was needed, I lacked, and that whatever quality was shunned, I could not escape. Curiously, as one year became the next, the attributes that I had once tried to embellish became the very thing that separated me from the group once again. Many a time did I find myself feeling as if I were trapped in an eternal game of chess, with nothing but a king at my disposal against an army.

Somehow I was never able to break free from my (I must use the word) uniqueness, while others lived happily in blissful regularity. They were all perfect, just as toy soldiers standing side by side, each indistinguishable from the next. Yes, I quite like the sound of that. Toys. Each precise and perfect, devoid of distinctions or that dreaded (here I must again say that word detested) uniqueness. How I longed for that toy-like state of being.

Sadly, it is an unattainable aspiration. For someone in such a position as myself, at least. After all, can one really pretend that the position from which one perceives reality does nothing to alter the reality of that very perception? It is utterly unthinkable to do so.

Occasionally in life one will happen across a stranger: a poor, misguided fool who has deluded himself into thinking his (I understand if you should like to divert yourself for a moment) uniqueness is a gift. That is not to say, of course, that men are the only form of beings that this curse may take victim. Such a plague does not distinguish one person from another.

But it seems that I have strayed from my intended path. The thing I mean to say is that every so often you will meet someone who will try to convince you that it is in fact a good thing to be (I will hold no grudge if at this point you wish to throw away this paper and pretend it was simply a bad dream) unique. Many a time in my existence has such an occurrence come to pass. On each occasion the persons in question, who shall remain unnamed (I do not wish to shame them for what I pray was a momentary lapse of judgment), have told me that that hated characteristic of mine is good; that it is what separates me from others. Ha! If only they could hear their own words! For what reason could any person wish to be separate from everyone around them?

It is a categorical truth that every man or woman wants only to be exactly as their neighbor. It is simply against human nature to want anything else. I fear that for me, however, it is a reality that will never come to be. For those afflicted with such a curse as my own, normalcy and all subsets thereof are but ontological concepts, existing only in the most obscure planes of reality.

For these reasons, I here express my advice that all who read this who share in my affliction will learn from it, and do whatever is necessary to mask or otherwise suppress their (I will say it once more, and only because I must) uniqueness.

But of course, not everyone can do it.

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