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Metta floated just above the floor in his little house, turning through the pages of an old human fashion magazine. Several other human magazines lay around him—mostly about pop idols and celebrity gossip. A few held details about new movies coming out that starred the most popular actors of the day.
The little ghost sighed deeply. How he wished he could look like these people: tall and curvy with shining hair and a made-up face. He wanted to do what they did too… sing and dance and show off new clothes for a cheering crowd.
But there was no such occupation in the Underground.
“Metta…? What are you doing?” a melancholy voice spoke above him.
Metta looked up to see his cousin, Napstablook, floating there. “Oh, you know. Just looking through my human magazines again. Don’t these people look lovely?” He turned the magazine to show Blooky a full body shot of a woman wearing a pink dress with strawberries on it. “Don’t you wish you could wear something like that?”
“Oh… um… I guess.” Blooky didn’t sound like they particularly cared for it. “Anyway, Maddy needs our help in the snail pen…”
Metta sighed. “Alright. I’ll be along in a minute.”
Blooky left Metta alone with his thoughts. He gazed one last time at the woman in the strawberry dress. He could just imagine himself in it, except he had a more masculine figure and face, with a hairstyle just above his shoulders and some bangs in front of his right eye, like he had now. The more he thought about it, the more he wished he’d been born human. It wasn’t fair that he was stuck as an incorporeal ghost underground when he had so many big dreams.
“METTA! Get your butt out here!” Maddy screeched from outside.
Metta sighed one last time before exiting his house straight through the wall. As he worked to contain the snails, who had escaped from their compound, he continued to daydream about what he wanted his future to look like.
He was determined to make his wishes come true somehow. It was only a matter of time, he thought. He’d come up with some way to look the way he wanted and do the things he dreamed of.
But in the meantime, he only had his imagination.