Matthew

a FTM (female-to-male) transgender boy named matthew

 

    He was standing on a slight hill in the middle of a vast field. At least, it was the middle as far as he could tell—the field extended beyond the peripheries of his vision. The field was packed with people of all different shapes, sizes, ages, colors, ethnicities, and fashion statements. In a quick glance, he saw orange skinny jeans, a three-piece suit, a naked toddler, overalls, a scarlet sari with gold trim, a sunny yellow raincoat, denim cutoffs, flip-flops, a silver evening gown with a plunging neckline, a green streak in jet-black hair, baggy jeans, bikini bottoms, a smiley-face t-shirt, stilettos, a puffy peasant shirt, a rainbow-dyed mohawk, a violet embroidered kimono, and a face painted blue.

    The crowd’s hushed murmuring subsided gradually yet swiftly, as if cut off by a maestro. As the silence descended like heavy snow falling off a tree limb, the crowd turned towards him. When he saw this, anxious butterflies invaded his abdomen and promptly seized power. He had no true cause to be nervous; he knew that these people would not make assumptions based on his figure, the Ace bandage wrapped excruciatingly around his chest, the body he had so long despised, his ineluctable estrogen-filled prison. He knew that the people surrounding him would understand, see past little things like gender and sex. He supposed that they already suspected what he was, clued in by his baggy clothes and short hair.

    They were waiting. He was waiting. The tension hung in the air heavier than humidity after a summer storm. The world stopped turning as time froze for eternal seconds.

    Finally, after a hundred millennia passed in the blink of an eye, he broke the silence with a triumphant shout: “My name is Matthew!”

    The crowd erupted in appreciative and supportive cheers as hats, sweatshirts, and shoes spewed into the sky like ash from a volcano.

 

 

    “Michelle! Get up! You’ll be late!”

    These words painfully jolted him out of his fantastical dream and back into the real world. The world where he was stuck as someone he had never wanted to be, trapped in a role that he couldn’t fill despite everyone’s expectations.

    The world where everyone would hate him if they knew him like they thought they did.

Author's Note

if you have anything against transgendered individuals, please keep it to yourself. if you don't know a lot about being transgendered, on the other hand, feel free to message me or comment with any questions.

a literary questions: is it clear enough from the piece that matthew is biologically female but identifies as male??

Reviews

[Kevin Vorshak]

I think the end clarifies the meaning of the story pretty well. I liked the use of the maestro when the crowd hushed and you could feel a bit of the awkwardness Mathew/Michelle felt about declaring who he was. A little rough in places but a nice read.