‘Chameleon Inside the
Shower Room’
by unfated
06.17.22

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I think I am weird, but I am totally fine being one.

“Hah . . . haa, hoo . . . huhuhu.”

Strange thoughts wash over my head as I choke on my saliva. I look up at the window five inches above my head before I scrunch my nose. 

“Is she moaning?” ask the imaginary man inside my head.

“No, I am not,” is what I answer. “I am forcing myself to cry,” I add.

“You’re pretty sick,” he replies.

“Yeah. Pretty and sick.”

I turn on the shower and let myself get soak in the water. I keep on talking to the man in my head as I stare out the window. I am trying so hard to moisten my lacrimal glands to produce tears, but I just couldn’t. I already thought of the saddest moment in my life, the saddest moment in my mother’s life, the saddest moments of my father’s, of my brother’s, of my best friend’s—still no use. 

“Why do you wanna cry?” the man asks again and then I sigh.

He is starting to materialize inside my head. He is an old, bald man with sunglasses of two different color lenses hanging on his huge, sparkly forehead. His teeth are yellowish, and his mustache is untamed. He smiles wickedly at me.

Pretty sick, I thought.

No. Scratch that. He is just . . . sick.

“I was rejected,” I tell him as I apply this cheap, sweet-smelling shampoo my mother purchased at Walmart. I didn’t even like what it does to my hair. It makes it frizzy, and my friend told me I smell like a cheap prostitute.

But prostitutes are pretty, I am pretty, so I take that as a compliment.

“You should cry.”

I scoff at the man. From now on, I’m gonna call him Fernando. Why Fernando? Because he looks and acts like a Fernando.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do, Fernando.”

“Wow. I have a name.”

“Good for you.”

He barks in laughter. Soon after his ear-damaging laugh, his body starts to form and he is pretty, and I mean pretty, fat—just like how I thought he shall be. His stomach seems like it will rip apart his red band shirt. I bet he drinks beer more often than water—that will explain why he looks like that. And if he isn’t a retired policeman, I’ll be utterly disappointed.

He is standing outside my six-foot-tall window. I don’t know if he is that tall or if he is standing on a ladder. I don’t know how his body appears on my wall. My imagination should be better than this. 

“So, kiddo, you were moaning—”

“I was crying.”

“Oh, my bad. Yes. You were crying,” he utters in a sarcastic tone. I just shrug it off. “You were crying because you were rejected. Is crying necessary?”

“Yes. I was told I should cry.” I start scrubbing my skin with an old, textured stone I found on the seashore last summer. “I should cry. My classmate told me so. My best friend told me so. My friend who pushed me to confess told me so. Isn’t that enough reason to call this necessary?”

“But you haven’t cried for years. You didn’t even shed a tear when your beloved cat got smashed like a tiny tomato by a twelve-wheeler truck—”

I interrupt. “Don’t talk about my cat like that.”

“Oh, but it's true.”

I sigh. I think I am even weirder just by being upset with my own imagination. He is talking like this because I imagined him talking like this.

“A simple rejection from someone you only forced yourself to like won’t certainly make you cry, Eislyn.”

“Oh, I must be fucking mad. A man formed solely in my imagination is lecturing me.”

“Didn’t you accept earlier that you are pretty and sick?”

I grin. “Damn right.”

“Then what’s wrong with me lecturing you?” He points his middle finger at me instead of his index finger.

“You are me. This is basically me lecturing myself.” I shrug my shoulders. I am quite content after I scrubbed my whole body. It is as if all of the imperfections that were sticking to me got removed. “Maybe Sachi saw me talking like this with all the made-up people I created in my little world. That’s why he decided to not just reject me but to humiliate me as well in front of the whole school.”

“It's not your problem that that dog-man was a douche.”

I laugh at the way he says dog-man. He is really sick. “Thanks for the reassurance, Fernando.”

He cackles. Suddenly, he is holding a bottle of beer and drinks straight from it. I roll my eyes as I start washing my whole body.

“You don’t need to force yourself to fit in, Eislyn. Like what you want. Do what you want. Be who you are.”

I really didn’t have to imagine him saying that to me, right? Not when I am butt-naked and taking a long shower. With his weird translucent body behind the wall of our bathroom and his head popping out the tiny window. He looks like shit. 

If someone overhears me talking to myself again like this, I’ll be called weird again.

“I’ve been telling that to myself all these years. But the world is just too cruel to people who are . . . different.”

And so I always try to fit in.

I always try my best to be normal. I tried asking for help when I was being bullied at five because it was the normal thing to do. Yet the bullies despised me more for it. I tried to mourn over the dead but squashed body of Summer, my dead cat, yet I was still called emotionless for not showing tears as we were burying him in our backyard. I tried to make friends no matter how badly everyone avoided me. I tried having a crush because it was a normal thing to do. I tried to like pop music even though I liked rock and heavy metal. I tried to like dresses even though I wasn't comfortable with them. I tried to like chocolate, even though it tasted like shit. I tried to find a boyfriend, confessing even, because they told me so. 

And now I am rejected . . . humiliated.

And forcing myself to cry because then I will look normal.

Where will I stand if I don’t do what society tells me to do?

I am too dumb to take a risk.

“You are here, Eislyn, being yourself, being comfortable,” Fernando utters. “Susan, Karen, and Bennet have probably told you this before, but there will always be someone out there who will like you for being you. And if you fail to find that someone . . . if you have nowhere else to go, just take a bath again. I’ll be just right here. Susan, Karen, and Bennet will be here. We’ll drink it all away.”

Silence. After he said that cringy-ass, try-hard motivational speech, all I can hear is the water dripping from the shower head.

“You”—I point at him. I twist the valve. I finally finish bathing—“are so fucking weird.”

He just smiles at me and didn’t say anything more. I am about to utter another word when the door behind me booms. I glance at the door where my brother is yelling, “Eislyn, you dipshit! You’ve been bathing for an hour now! Get the hell out! My shit’s about to fall off my goddamn butt!” and glance back at the window. But Fernando is no longer there.

I shrug my shoulders and put on a towel over my head, wore my robe, and just left the bathroom. I didn’t give my brother a passing glance as I go back to my room. I stand in front of my vanity mirror and point at my reflection. 

“Talking to yourself in the bathroom, huh?” I chuckle. “You are so fucking weird.”

Pretty and sick and weird, I thought.

I went to school still trying to make myself look pitiful. I am holding the straps of my cute, black bag as I am walking and kicking stones along the way. People are staring at me. I know why, of course. I start thinking about sad moments again until I got to the second floor of the junior high school building, where my classroom is.

“Eislyn.” A sweet voice calls my name making me turn my head.

It is Selene, Sachi’s friend, who, for the record, reprimanded him for humiliating me yesterday.

I start praying to the moon for my tears to fall. I really like this girl. Not like in like a romantic way or anything. I just . . . like her. And how she defends me yesterday? I start thinking that she should like me. 

“Huhuhu,” I fake a cry.

Selene looks troubled when she finally catches up to me. “A-are you crying? OMG! Who made you cry?”

I am not crying.

In fact, I would’ve probably looked so fake with my fake sobs. I shall commend her for believing in my acting bullshits. 

I really like her.

“Hush now,” she says in a soft voice. Her jet-black hair sways as she moves. She walks beside me and pats my back. I automatically smell her perfume—the Chloé perfume she wore almost every day. I know, because it smells nice on her and I directly asked her before. I then suddenly felt apologetic for faking my cry.

I clear my throat and grab her wrist to stop her from patting me. She flinches, but she is quick to hide her shock.

“I’m okay now,” I say. “Thank you.”

There is a tint of pink on her cheeks that I don’t pay much attention to. After all, she is looking at my hand on her wrist, so I think she wants me to let go. I did.

“Why did you call me?” I ask. Selene is now pouting her lips.

“I wanted to apologize for Sachi’s behavior yesterday—”

“That wasn’t you who humiliated me,” I cut her off. “You shouldn’t be apologizing.”

“I know, b-but . . .” She blushes. The tint of pink on her cheeks becomes more visible. It reaches her earlobes. She looks so cute. She reminds me of Arian when she was talking to her crush.

“Do you have a crush on me?” I ask. When her eyes widened in shock, that’s when I realize that my mouth spoke what was inside my head.

“W-what?”

I massage my chin. “Well, you were blushing and you looked agitated and you sounded like you were gonna confess—which is, in Arian’s terms, ‘signs that someone has a crush on you.’”

Silence. And then she takes a step back away from me. Her brows are furrowed but her cheeks remain rose-tinted. With that reaction, I thought that she might hate me now. I have concluded something from her actions.

She must’ve thought I am strange . . . or weird.

“Eislyn, you . . .” Selene trails off. She brushes off her fringe and then lets out a cute chuckle. “You really don’t fail to amaze me.”

“Amaze you?” I ask hesitantly.

She nods. “I didn’t approach you because I like you or anything. I’m just a little flustered because of what happened yesterday. I am really sorry for what Sachi did.”

My mouth forms an o and I utter an, “oh,” in a monotone.

Selene laughs again. “But . . .” I watch how she tries to suppress a smile off her lips, but she is failing hard. “I think I like you now—not in a romantic way or anything, just to be clear.” She giggles.

Right after she said that a strange figure of an old man appears behind her—behind the concrete wall of our classroom—and he is smiling at me.

Fernando.

He is still holding the bottle of beer and his belly is huge it will almost rip apart his red band shirt. He gives me a thumbs-up before disappearing again into nothingness.

I look at Selene, and then at the empty wall behind her. And then I think,

I am weird, and I am totally fine being one.

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This story is dedicated to all my fellow strange people out there. Stay weird, you guys! Someone out there likes you for who you are. Sabi nga ni Erika sa Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, ‘And if what you are is a strange you, doesn’t mean you should change you.’ BUT if you think that there is absolutely no one who likes your uniqueness (which is impossible, if you ask me), just think of me okay? Okay?!!! ੈ♡