By Casey Liston

Lay down your crown, Mickey: there is no character here more fabulous than I.

I strut through the neighborhood on my morning walk, draped in my usual jewel tones, head held high and proud for the paparazzo in the passenger seat of a passing car. Some say celebrity comes with a cost, but here, money is no object. Ambassador and keeper of this city, the iconography of your very culture and heritage! – in Winter Park, none can captivate the crowds quite like me.

The sun blinds me as I turn a corner (my bold eyeglasses are purely ornamental). To search for winter in Central Florida would be a fool’s errand, though the wealthy New Englanders of yore certainly tried, nestling their vacation homes along our lakefronts. The original snowbirds, I suppose, though their flock has not yet managed to drive out the leggy egrets patrolling their sandy shores or the mockingbirds, proclaiming their mighty chorus.

But none are as fantastic as I, the quintessential high society socialite, ubiquitous and enigmatic in turn. I come from new money, yes, but new money so old now its origins are a distant memory. My kin did not choose this place but made it our own, outliving every orange grove and many of you, too; admired with such frenzy for so long, nobody seems to recall we were once thought to be as invasive as your frosty iguanas. We are proud stewards of our community, nothing like those garish swans in Orlando. We patrol your streets, take up residence in your front yards, drive your tiny felines insane with our copycat calls. As is our right and privilege, elite among our kind and yours.

Yet I fear you have become complacent. The dignity of my anointment to your town seal gave way to the vague embarrassment of crude reproductions: cartoonish logos on mass produced 5K fun-run tee shirts; kitschy yellow “XING” signs planted by the curb; nubby fingers and even nubbier crayons scrawling my figure orange – orange!! – at preschools up and down Park Avenue! I sat upon my throne, built of the wrought iron from your town welcome signs, and embraced your appropriation, albeit unasked, of my beauty and grace. The years I’ve toiled as your muse, your little mascot, only to see my Art Deco silhouette stamped upon official documents calling for my removal from your precious neighborhoods. Have you misplaced your idolatry? Have you forgotten whose home you sleep in?

Lost in thought, I stop short at a stucco wall, its crown of red clay tiles piercing the clouds above. I know this neighborhood well, though its acres of flowering citrus gave way long ago to these faux-Spanish monstrosities. You may call these your homes, but this land is forever ours. For old time’s sake, I wander toward the lake but stop short when I see a gaggle of children, outnumbered by their backpacks and lunchboxes. I bob my head twice and arch my back: showtime. In a flash I display my train, launching hundreds of green feathers skyward, their countless blue eyes flashing with greedy delight. The children scream and scramble around the nearest corner, its street sign boasting my tiny countenance. What a thrill, to be reminded of the opulence you humans can never achieve, beige as you are!

I bob my head once more, satisfied. Don’t get too comfortable with the cartoons bearing my likeness. You might forget to even notice them, omnipresent as they are, but let me remind you: I am unforgettable, lavish and exceptional, a bearer of beauty and terror beyond compare. A car glides by, the driver smiling at my ass, speeding up when he catches my beady glare. I am not one of you. I am something else entirely.

~~~

Casey Liston is a writer whose work is forthcoming in A New Anthology of Florida Writers. Her story “Omakase” won first place in the Women on Writing Flash Fiction Contest. A born and raised Floridian, Casey now lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She can be reached on social media at @caseylistonwriter.