The Peddler of Wares

Naked, I cannot cringe under the glare of the powerful lights trained on me. The men who will dress me up for my next look crowd around me, busy with the materials of their trade. The busy highway whizzes past me, cars light me up with their curious headlights as they go home without so much as a second glance. I bear it all. Unmoved, immovable, immobile, wooden.

For I am used to this. To this blatant peddling of wares. To selling what I wear the best way I know. By wearing it and daring others to dream. Men will look at me and go on home to their lamp-lit, cosy homes and snuggle close to their wives for warmth as I stand in the rain. Women will glance at me from the comfort of the air-conditioned cars they drive as I continue to exist in the harsh sun. Children will gaze at me vacantly as they go by, their eyes sweeping from one sight to the next without anything to hold their attention on this busy link road between cities.

And I, dwarfed by the under-construction skyscrapers all around me, in this city that is hurrying to be something new, something else, something modern, will be left behind, standing there, stripped for the world to see---if it has the time---what I really am: just a frame on which new posters will be stretched and fitted every few weeks, selling houses, cars, food. And no one will see me underneath it all as I watch the world pass me by.