Narcissism vs. Nihilism

In this story I let the actress play her part. She is telling a true story. She has her audience crying. But the flowers in her hat are wilted and turning brown and one of her stockings has dropped. She rises expectantly to take her bows, quite startled to see the auditorium has emptied.

There is a second part to this tale. The actress has left town. All of her thespian talents having been disbursed, she now practices ventriloquism in another state to feed her narcissism. She manipulates her puppets with purple strings behind black velvet curtains coated with marshmallows.