I am the ugliest person in the world and in demand. Highly paid and sought after because, in this world obsessed by beauty, I make everyone else look better.
And in this world fashioned in vanity that quality is priceless.
My looks are now interesting, exotic, different and a talking point.
Ugliness is now a valuable commodity.
Oh, I know my looks are just an object. They’re not interested in me as a person of what lies beyond this covering.
It's all so superficial.
But I can't complain. I am well paid and live in a fabulous property. A mansion with grounds, called Corvus Hall.
At least I don’t have to slave away like my parents did. My mum cleaned dirty rank spit filled floors, destroying her skin with harsh chemicals for a pittance.
Or my dad, who had to leave the house at 5 am and work in all weathers, coming home in darkness soaked and chilled to the bone.
Both of them are old before their time.
At least my work is not exhausting, though perhaps just as humiliating and belittling. But doesn’t everybody sell a small piece of their soul when exchanging their labour for cash?
At school, there was not much down for me. I was stupid, clumsy and from a poor family. Added to that, I was very ugly.
I had a dream that like the tale of the ugly duckling, I too would one day awaken a graceful and serene handsome swan.
But it was just a dream that never came true.
Each morning, I’d awake and look in the mirror and see the same face staring back at me.
One day, someone shouted in the playground, “He’s ugly, ugly as a crow!”
“He’s Crow Face,” replied someone.
I became Crow Face.
The nickname stuck and followed me throughout. Nobody, except my close family, used my other name after that.
To the world, I was Crow Face.
I learnt early on that what matters in this world is who your family are, “who you know,” and what skills you have, “what you know.”
In both areas, I was at a disadvantage.
I looked set for a life of struggle and squalor.
But as luck would have it, there were changes occurring in the world. Everybody was becoming more obsessed with beauty. In all its outward forms, everyone strove for physical perfection. Even those of average looks could now, with money and effort, improve their looks to be good-looking.
The more the people around me became beautiful the more I stood out. A contrast with my ugliness.
In the land of graceful swans the crow sticks out.
And I was an ugly crow at that.
That's when I started being in demand. Those who had mocked me, disdained and ignored me for my “Crow face” as a teenager now courted me. Not because they liked me. I never deluded myself on that front, nor was it any innate quality like my personality or wit. I had none.
No, they prized and valued me for my ugliness, my “Crow Face.”
I would be paid to escort beautiful people and be photographed in their company. Paid to appear with them. Paid to do adverts. All this just to make the others in the photo or the programme look better looking. Compared to me, even the most average-looking person could look stunning.
I felt degraded at times. Like I was selling my body. But I was selling my face rather than my body.
Whatever name you choose to call me, I don’t care. Just pay the fee and I’ll be ugly for you.
And then move on. I’ll quickly forget your face as it fades away.
In this world, unless you’ve been given privilege at birth, you’ve got to use whatever you have been given. We all have to make our own deals with the devil and hope we can live with the terms.
Play with the cards you are dealt with and now I found that my deuces had been changed into Aces.
Life now highly valued my innate ugliness. So I made sure to use it to my material advantage.
The alternatives were not very appealing. A life of precarious low-paid drudgery.
So they can now think what they like of me. I will be rolling in riches and live in a fancy place in peace and quiet.
I made sure that my mum no longer had to wear out her hands and knees and have her skin reddened by burning cleaning chemicals.
My dad no longer had to get up at dawn to get soaked and frozen or burnt.
When I close the door behind me I am my own being. I have filled my place with objects that interest me. I have collected everything that is considered ugly and broken to surround myself.
Outside all I see is non ending beautiful perfection which holds no interest for me and sometimes sets feelings of revulsion.
Someday, when I’ve earned enough, I’ll lock the doors and never again set foot in a world I don’t feel I belong in. Nor will I ever look upon the empty beauty that exists everywhere.
In my world ugliness shall be its own beauty.
I can be comfortable being myself.
Here I can be Christopher and not “Crow Face.”
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Simon is a writer from England. He seeks solitude and shadow.