Scenery Boy

He was a scenery boy with a Chinese Pantomime. My skin fits me like a Babybel, she said in the wings. He had that kind of stare, she thought. He pulled out a needle and wiped it against her thumb - there is a slice gone now. No fingerprint. It was the worst of nightmares, forgetting their lines. That was what scared the actors most. Sometimes you could feel them shaking as they waited beside you. The red skin peels away.

The happy scenery boy. He plumps himself up. He watches with pride, when really he wants to be centre stage. He flings himself at the feet of actresses and calls out, 'She's behind you.' (Oh no, he's behind you, I meant to say.) Poor scenery boy, he wears trousers that are too old. He said, 'Your face fits you like a tin, that's not quite right.' I think we got our lines wrong. Tilted inwards, he brushes against the velvet curtain, wishing he was out there, not here. Not like this. It's the worst place to be.

I am a boy in a Pantomime. My label is showing. Waiting in the wings, is the scenery boy. I have seen him there often. His face fits him. I will ask him later why he waits. His face fits him.....fits him like a.....like...I have often stared at the widow. Her rouged cheekbones, or should I say....his. Terrible nerves on the stage. With all this emotion, children calling out from behind mothers' skirts. The big, bad wolf. The little Buttons comes. Paper lanterns. Snakes made of thin cloth. Things that plug into furniture to make strange fizzing sounds when someone cries. Melodramatic facial expressions exaggerated by blue shadows. The lights worked well, didn't they?

He was a scenery boy in a Chinese Pantomime. That's where it all started. Sorrowful, he picked up small trees cut out of card. He had used two sample pots of paint to make it look like leaves. Two boxes that served to be a narrow-backed chair. Three lanterns, that looked red with the lights shining on them. However, in reality, they were grey. In the wings, they served well, lasted the whole season. Lots of slide-marks where items were dragged. The same lines, driving into the polish. Lines upon lines upon lines.

When he arrived home, he had stolen a piece of tape that held the two-box-backer together. Maybe tomorrow, the chair would fall and the lady would teeter. Her shaking hands and the dead scenery boy. The needle hidden. The horror as he looked in the mirror that failed to tell the truth. Mirror, mirror. He screamed. It was not supposed to lie.

A scenery boy in a Chinese Pantomime, found lying with a pin-prick thumb. A perfect slice. Two perfect lines of Kohl on the cheeks. Signifying arrows pointing to the horrors within. Remember your lines, perfected. You memorised them all and no-one ever noticed, only the velvet curtains held you warm. Two widows in the wings, two widows sighing. He was a good boy, we told him so. His face fit him like a tin.