WORTHY

He approached me with the grace of peacocks strutting their feathers. So confident and bold, and I felt my ugly duckling feathers too shameful to show. Yet, he still offered me a hand and told me that he’d show me the world through the lens of the beautiful and powerful. My desperation was always such a pathetic trait.

“You just owe me a piece of you.” He told me. “A feather, if you would.”

“My feathers are worthless compared to yours,” I said. I hid my face in my dowdy skin.

“It is not the beauty that I crave.” He said. His face was so unassuming, so honest.

“Alright.” I flinched as I plucked a feather, the least damaged among them, and presented it to him, and I knew what it was like to share a part of myself. The only thing I didn’t consider was that I may never take that part back.

My ugly duckling skin was not yet shed, nor was I any more graceful by being around him, but I still convinced myself I was untouchable. Even with the growing balding patches across my skin, I felt so strong, hidden in the protection of someone more confident than myself.

“Today will be another feather.” He said. I shuddered at the thought, my skin grew bare with his requests. But still, I thought, when I have no more feathers, he will have nothing more to ask of me.

“Okay,” I said. The plucking no longer made me flinch, each motion was simply clockwork. I failed to notice the greedy eyes that took in my damaged feathers and gazed at them the way a miser views his gold. Like they were all his.

“A feather.” He no longer looked at me, but in this, he failed to realize that I had no more feathers left to give him.

“My skin is bare,” I said. Tears brimmed my eyes, threatening to fall.

“I see.” He hummed.

“Am I worthless to you now?” Fear gripped me in its vice, the suffocation of being alone and looking as disgusting as I did was greater than my fear of the answer.

“No, I will simply ask for something else.” He observed me. “A pound of flesh, perhaps.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Have you no ears? Your flesh. The feathers alone are not enough, what more is a bit of flesh? No one else will have you, so give me this, and I will.” He declared. In a flourish he dropped his feathers, the cascading weight fell free in a wall of mosaic beauty. He was beyond words and I was now a bald duckling, no more than the dirt beneath his feet. Walking away now was always going to be his option, but I had no such choice.

“I- I will.” So, I cut a piece of my skin from the rest, watching the red bubble up to the surface, then spill down my arm in trails of scarlet.

“Good.” He smiled, swiping up yet another piece of me.

Before long, the bandages wrapped my body and I became too weak to follow, collapsing to my bloodied heap of blood and bones, held together by the cloth bandages and fragile resolve I had left.

“Get up.” He ordered. “This is not enough.”

“That's all I have left.” I begged.

“You haven’t heard me, I said that this isn’t enough. So you will give me more yet.” By the time I could see him, it was far too late. The once pretty peacock feathers had turned to leather, his beautiful skin was now tight and cold and dark. The figure I had once admired was nothing more than a bloodsucker.

He was feasting upon me.

He ripped into the flesh I had left, pulling apart my muscles and ligaments until He could suck the marrow from my very bones. I became nothing but dust under him. He took and took and took and displayed nothing but disregard for the way he destroyed me in the process.

I was an ugly duckling no more.

I truly was nothing.

“Even this is not enough. You were pitiful after all.” He told me, scattering my pieces.

“Please, spare me,” I begged.

“You have a debt to me. I will take what I am owed.”

Day by day, he continued to rip me to pieces anew. When I began to heal even slightly, he would tear me down just as easily, his very gaze was enough to rip me apart and sell me for parts. I was nothing more than dust and guts and he knew that I was too weak and weary to fight back.

I had nearly lost hope when a maggot first stumbled on my path.

“Please, release me from this world,” I begged the creature.

“My word, your poor rotten flesh.” It gasped, studying me. “Who has ruined you this way?”

“It is only my own fault.” I shed involuntary tears.

“My sweet dove, such a beautiful creature does not deserve to be tormented so.” The maggot inched around my broken body.

“I am nothing but guts.” I protested.

“To retain such pain and still persist is one of the most beautiful qualities there is. I cannot consume what should be nurtured.” The maggot declined. “Sweet dove, you are far stronger than you let yourself think.”

“I am too weak to slay my demon.”

“Yet it is I that consumes them all in the end.” The maggot argued. “The mightiest of beasts fall by my hand, why could you not do the same?”

“You are so strong, but I cannot bear this any longer.” I pleaded.

“You are much more than strong. Your resilience is your strength. Use it. Slay your demons and show them that this world is not only for the strong.” The maggot inched along, leaving me in its dust. Still, I knew what I had to do.

The peacock thumped its way toward me, its footsteps echoing as it approached me, ready to take me apart, but this time I was ready. When I felt the peacock’s hands begin to rip into me, I hurled my dusted bones into its eyes.

“You damn ungrateful woman!” He screamed, covering his eyes, but I was far from defeated. I took my rotten flesh and shoved it into his open mouth, forcing the dirty bloodsucking peacock onto it’s back.

“All you do is take! So take it all back.” I felt the rage burn my eyes as the peacock writhed beneath me, blind and choking on the remnants of what he had done to me. When the deed was finally done, I felt myself collapse, nothing but a pile of my dismembered organs, splintered bones, and rotting flesh. The memory of ugly feathers was a comfort to me now, something I may never have again.

Now. Now it is enough.