What do you say when they point at you?

Once in a very long while, you realise that the little bubble you have built around you may not be as resilient as you would prefer to believe. Like when you find out someone has been talking about you. Good things? Atrocious unaccountable snide? It doesn't really matter. Because as far as I am concerned, either elicit a similar reaction. A feeling of helplessness, of being jolted back into reality without prior warning - there are people looking at you, forming opinions about, saying things about you - and here you believed you are invisible. The wispy imperceptible veil, that until now only fluttered sporadically to let you catch fleeting glimpses of what lies beyond, now melts away, and you feel naked and raw - exposed to the leers of all.

Even when good things are being said, the very knowledge of other people acknowledging your existence can be disconcerting. It means you will have to peek out of your little existential carapace, and match them eye for eye, beat for beat. Your countenance will betray the scuffle inside of you, blood searing through the veins up your flustered cheeks, evoking awkward sensations you never knew you could feel, summoning the most incoherent of all ramblings, airbrushing your otherwise pallid face in the hottest of red.

Embarrassed? What for? They only mentioned you once. Well that still does it, doesn't it?

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