In the Ring (An Experiment in Surrealism)

My ambivalence seemed to shock the crowd more than the spectacle itself. We stood in the ring as the audience gaped. More out of a need for attention than anything else, she continued to rip the flesh from her body. She tore it away as a child would tear off a blanket in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, at the arrival of some nightmare. Nevertheless, as she peeled the layers, I remained poised. It was, after all, my duty to stage the intervention. She needed to be stopped. Her body was plump, that’s all I’ll say about that. She lay flat on her back and the tissue beneath her skin showed more prominence with each layer she peeled away. Disgusting figure, she was. Even in her skin she was ugly. But without it she was something of an abomination to ugliness. The word did nothing to describe her.
The spectators’ fixation on my stoicism threatened the young, plump maiden, for now in her frustration she had reached her final layer of skin and was tearing away at the muscles. Desperately she tugged away at her flesh. And I, with one hand on my chin, the other on my elbow, considered how I would abolish whatever woe this woman’s skin had caused her. But she seemed more frantic with each passing moment.
I crouched beside her and stroked her bloody throbbing belly. The crowd could not be silenced.
“You’re frightening her!” I howled.
The crowd was a hush. And just as I had calmed them, this pulsating pulp of a woman disappeared. My fingers closed around the air where at once I had her in my grasp. It took me a second to collect myself; the intervention had been underway. I was preparing to give my most moving and convincing speech yet, and she vanished before I could deliver it. What a pity. What a curious disappearance, no goodbye. Never in all my years had I witnessed such a thing. I wiped my bloody hands on the ground before I rose. I could not let the audience witness my shock. I sought to regain my composure as best I could and I stood to face them.
The audience had transformed into a mirror. I blinked at the horror of it all and walked closer to this mirror wall. I pushed my hands against it just to be sure I hadn’t made some tragic mistake. No. I was right. I crept a little closer and nearly fainted at the shock. There I stood, staring at myself in the mirror.
What happened to my skin? It was gone. And there in the ring I stood, grotesquely disfigured, and without my flesh, without my audience.