XENDER THEATER

Rosalia — “Do you think you’re one of them?”

Oscar doesn’t answer, her eyes fixed on the sky.

Rosalia — “I was talking about the flowers, not the slugs, in case you didn’t get it. Because of your hair. Though slumped in the dew like that, I could’ve made a mistake too...”

Oscar (deadpan) — “Ha ha.”

Rosalia looks at the dented bike and the wreck beside it — “Did you tumble all the way down here from the road?”

Oscar doesn’t answer.

Rosalia — “Fine. Should I call the police or Peter Pan?”

Oscar — “I didn’t run away. I’m eighteen.”

Rosalia — “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Oscar painfully raises her arm and points to the sky — “See that bird? This morning, she didn’t know how to fly before her mother pushed her off the edge. Now she can go wherever she wants. Pretty cool.”

Rosalia — “And you, why don’t you go anywhere else besides my flowerbed?”

Oscar — “Because this is where I’m supposed to be.”

Rosalia — “I give it an hour before the sun turns your face as red as your hair.”

Oscar (muttering) — “I hate being outside.”

Rosalia — “You’ll have to speak up, old ladies are hard of hearing.”

Today I turned my dressing room into a theater backstage

I may paint that white wall in red as well

I might make something out of this version.

The babies ✨✨

I’m not telling you anything new by bringing up the story of MJ, who felt compelled to record Thriller at 3 AM before the idea could be given to Prince. I used to find that line of thinking a bit questionable. Until a certain weirdoress in a green suit kicked my door open in the dead of night, after a six-year absence.

I started writing Oscar back in 2019. Same messages, same stakes, same scarlet mane—six different stories. I was writing about sensations I had never experienced myself, lived through by a character who was always older than me. And damn, thankfully I’m not in her shoes. I know many authors have self-insert characters, or live through their alter-egos in their stories. But Oscar, to me, is… something else. It’s as if a tiny fraction of myself had been taken and turned into something entirely different, out of almost nothing. It must be strange. To look at a being and know she is you, while being completely someone else. A being? Is that even the right word? Technically she exists, she stands upright, she makes sense. But she isn't… here?

I realize now, in retrospect, that during the years I left her in a drawer (surely because I had to convince myself that these kinds of ramblings were stopping me from fitting into the mold), I was watching someone close to me change. Carrying those exact same stakes like the weight of the world—even dying their hair red along the way! Then, that phase stopped abruptly. And that’s where the question comes from: are ideas disembodied forms of life? Did I invent Oscar? Or does she just prefer me as a vessel? Does existing as a muse in the scattered projects of an artist searching for her identity suit her better than being embodied by a person who could have done without the weight of her internal conflicts? She has a big heart; she wouldn’t inflict that on anyone.