I wrapped myself in a curtain and stood by the window so that when the light became unbearable for the people indoors, I could spread my arms wide and dilute the light. This way, they would receive only a fraction of the glare. This was welcomed by all, as they had sensitive eyes. They did not enjoy light.
I was not a paid employee. This role as human-curtain was voluntary. But I had no intention of ever using this experience to get access to another, more favourable position. This was it, for me.
I had never been hired, as such. I was not invited inside the house. I simply wandered indoors one day, out of the rain, saw the limp, lifeless curtain-rags by the window and opted to fuse them with my flesh. As it turned out, it was much preferred by all to have a human-curtain than a ragged non-curtain – a failure curtain. I made it my business never to fail at being a curtain.
If I were to disappear, or be burned up in a house fire, the house's inhabitants would have to suffer the painful daylight once more. But they would survive, probably. Uncomfortable, but alive.
And speaking of discomfort – the act of being a human-curtain was utterly painless for me. You would think it would feel strange, at least, to seamlessly join flesh to fabric, becoming part-skin part-material – but it felt familiar instead. Comforting.
I had never been fabric before I started always being fabric.
Now that I'd become fabric, I could not imagine any other way of life.
I could not easily recommend the lifestyle to you, because you are not me, so I have no way of knowing if it would suit you or not. Also I have no direct means of communication with the world outside my head. Even this communication you read now is not written down, but composed inside my head. And you, reader, probably do not exist.
No-one will read this inner monologue, this train of thought. I compose it in my head only for myself, to better understand myself – to better understand what it means to be a human-curtain. Unless they have found a way to transcribe thoughts. In that case, a machine could be pointed at me, revealing each word as I think it, which could be written down and distributed among the libraries of the world.
But even if a thought-transcribing machine did exist, why would they point it at me? To all intents and purposes, I look like an ordinary curtain. The people who live in this house will by now have forgotten I was ever human, if they knew in the first place.