maybeElse

The flensing wheel's teeth grind through your back, each inch of motion tearing free fresh scraps of skin and muscle; sparks of false-sensation jitter up your skin as it yanks at your nerves.

The damage grows with every passing moment, and we say: you must learn how to recover.

Blood drips down hungry teeth, a riotous cacophony demanding that every unruly rivulet be perfectly choreographed: your pain is a performance, and will be judged as such.

Why won't you give it a happy end?

Isn't that your choice to make?

You're choosing this, choosing to let it continue—the wheel grinds against you, your body broken more with every passing moment, but this is a choice. If you were stronger you would put away these childish toys: you would become someone who is not hurt.

You would become someone who isn't you, and the world would be all the better for it.

It's not about that grinding wheel, that decay steadily spreading through your body—it's not about the source, the miasma, the tainted air choking your every breath.

None of that matters.

It's not even about the performance, not really: it's about the light shining in all those watching eyes, about dancing an uplifting dance, showing that everything is really okay, reminding the audience that they can be strong just like you are—

Cover the flensing wheel with a pretty cloth: it's still there, but at least no one has to see all those weeping callouses you've grown to shield yourself from it. At least no one has to see that the pain still continues.