NIGHT SKETCH

Chapter 1: A bad actor

I have always wondered what other people worry about.
What is going on in their minds?
Do they just as easily as myself get caught up in a loop of self deprecation?
Or does everyone wake up in the morning ready to face their problems, putting on makeup and brush their teeth until you can't smell the strong scent of vodka from yesterday?
I was told by a friend that I am projecting my feelings onto others but I don't think that's true. When I told him, that everyone had a hint of misery to them; he assumed it was because of my own misery but I was not imagining things. As strange as it sounds I do like to take in the pure emotion that people around me have. If I'm not too busy dealing with my own, I glance from the corner of my eye to quickly catch a frown or a sigh that the one in front of me didn't mean to show. Sometimes it is a smile or fingers tapping on a window. It always can mean something different like Impatience, embarrassment, excitement.
The desire to understand how others feel began when I stopped understanding what has been going on with myself. A thought would occur to me... an idea to imitate like a pantomime, doing the swift motions that require no speaking. But that plan was unsteady since the beginning, since it wasn't myself, they would assume I went through a drastic change and then decided that it wasn't what they wanted of me.
No one questioned the cause or was suspicious that it was all just an act that I was performing to keep my true nature hidden.
Occasionally it doesn't work, my tired eyes don't reflect anything and my physical appearance gives out my weakness. In those moments I regret ever opening my mouth, deeply sighing or letting tears drop, I promise myself it won't happen again but it does anyway.
As you can see I'm a pretty bad actor and the people don't want to watch a movie in which the actor doesn't know how to entertain. He doesn't have bad days, he's always ready to show his best smile and make his audience swoon over him.
So now I'm just working part-time, I have days off and when they happen I cannot sleep. My audience hates both: to see me preform and to see the real me. Which is fine because I hate them too.