Bathroom Monologue: I'm No Better Than My Worst

Back in middle school I made up a lot of characters to live out fantasies. I was bored with my parents and afraid of my peers; and they all thought I was weird. So I lived through my stories. One was of Colonel Vortez, a black knight of the darkest shade. He lived a contrived existence, purely ridiculous with its carnage and excess, but it was real to him. It wasn't easy on him, either. He fantasized about the original Black Emperor, a mythological figure who consumed all the lands in his kingdom and took all strife with ease. But you know, that emperor had his weak moments. They weren't written down, but they happened, and they felt long. In those times the Emperor wished he were something other than human. He wished he were a dragon, like the Fjiorjund of legend. But the Fjiojund dragon, for all its treasures and bluster, had a deathly fear, for there were cracks between the scales on its belly, and so much as a needle between them would end its eternal life. And there were so many brave hunters and would-be dragonslayers in its time, with so many more things than needles. It wished to be something smaller, less sought-after. It wanted to be an Elf King, one of the Jou, tucked away in the misty woods where no one could walk uninvited, and all trespasses were lost. But Fjiorjund the dragon had only heard thirdhand rumors of the Elf Kings, and didn't know how lonely these perfectly safe, secluded rulers were. Each and every Elf King wanted to be someone else. One every wrote poetry about the life he wished he could lead, if only he was human, out in a big human society, in their concrete buildings. How much he would have liked to grow up a human, with a lifespan, limited to give his years meaning. How much he would have liked to grow up a human, to grow up with parents who cared, and go to school surrounded by other children, instead of living all alone in his boring, real world.