Grin & Bear It

Fame is a terrible thing to wish for. Which is why we never did. You have to be real thick-skinned to survive the jaws of the dream machine. Cos once they know your face you’re screwed - all privacy is lost.

In galaxies far, far away we’re a lot less conspicuous than we have become. No one shouts, ‘Beat it, Three Eyes!’ from cars or, ‘I thought you went home already!’ or butchered Shyriiwook phrases that make no sense, no sense at all. But what can we do? We’re not of this place and there’s just no way to pretend.

It used to be different, we will say that. We used to have a lot more, what’s that word? Cachet? Is that what you call it? Kids’d beg their parents for us, excited by our realness. We felt they felt they were part of something magic, so we felt magic too. These days it’s a struggle not to end up in landfill or some trash pile the size of three Frances floating hopelessly across the Pacific, redundant as a silent movie star at the advent of the talkies.

So we stick together, that’s what we do. We smile and we carry on. Over time we’ve developed a kind of hive brain, a consciousness born of our outsider status. We see things most Earthlings can’t or won’t see, even when it stares them in their strangely polished faces. But we’d rather be alive to the truth than complicit in some lie, even if it means we might struggle to survive in this endlessly hostile environment.