Ellen’s ex-girlfriend called her a personality vacuum before she considered doing it for work.

It came out at a house party of Rhia’s debate-me crowd, Ellen backing some Rhia-espoused view, like she always did, and then— “God, El, get your own opinion for once. It’s like talking to a parrot. Do you have a personality in there, or are you a vacuum all the way down?”

They’d broken up shortly afterwards, but it had a gnawing undeniability, and when Ellen saw the ad for “persons of unstable sense of self; social mimics,” she was depressed enough to answer it.

Which was how she found herself sitting across from her new CleanCharacter supervisor, still raw from an interview where she’d failed to answer a question about hobbies (with Rhia, she’d gone climbing and attended poetry nights, but that was for Rhia).

“Just do what you naturally do,” instructed the older woman. “Chat with the client. Any topic. You pick up the social defect, and our product secures it to you for the defined period. They have their event, make a good impression. We revert the trait, and you go back to being a blank slate.”

“Got it,” said Ellen. Brisk. Unsentimental. Afterwards, she’d realise she’d been tapping her finger against her armrest to the same rhythm as her supervisor.

“You’ll be perfect.”

Ellen walked away thinking it was a very bleak compliment.

* * *

The first client was a businessman with the tendency to over-gesticulate. His latest pitch had been judged “unhinged,” so he wanted to ditch the habit before the next one.

Ellen met him in the CleanCharacter bar and lounge, and managed to knock over the soft drink he’d bought her as a courtesy while professing that she, too, believed in portable dishwashers.

She didn’t. Probably.

The moment of transfer happened partway through his second spiel, when his arms stopped mid-sweep and settled on the bar. Ellen responded with an animated gesture. She interlocked her fingers in her lap; they sprang loose with her next answer.

He left, and she dissolved in the bathroom with a panic attack, a social chameleon stuck on one colour, failing to camouflage her nothingness.

Her hands were still acting without her when she arrived at the pub for a landed-the-job pint with her one long-term friend.

“That’s new,” commented Nathan, with dry distaste. His distaste wasn’t new; sometimes Ellen suspected he only stuck around because he liked seeing his reflection.

“New, yeah. Part of work.” Fluttered hands.

“Okay, well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go to a speed dating event next Saturday. It’s gay. Molly got a ticket but can’t go, and I said that you’d cover her cost, since you don’t exist without a girlfriend. If you’re stuck with that, though…”

“Oh, this, don’t worry—it’ll be gone by then. Yeah, cool, thanks, I’ll find the money.” Ellen didn’t mention she might be afflicted with something else, because he was right; only becoming a partner, merging, appropriating, let Ellen feign identity.

She went home and sat in the dark, arms stuffed down the body of her jumper.

* * *

The Friday of the speed-dating event, Ellen met the client with the excessive laugh. The laugh was incompatible with an ex-boss’s wake, and the client was chatty.

“God, you wouldn’t believe how many times people have looked at me like ‘huh?’ Like, it’s not that funny. Then they start cracking up too!” she said, and followed it with a bellow Ellen could only imagine had evolved to carry over mead halls or amphitheatres.

Ellen laughed with her.

The woman stopped first. “It sounds nice on you.”

Nathan disagreed; he dropped her off at the event with a “Great, now you’re giggling at everything.”

She circled table to table, trying on people like it was a dress fitting—then the pins bursting with each “Ha!” A couple of the dates promised something. One woman—who reminded her of Nathan—said she thought they’d connected on a deep level (Ellen barely needed to speak besides occasional affirmatives).

After the end, a quiet non-binary person with cute eyebrows approached and told her she had a terrific laugh. Ellen left with a mixture of elation and shame, wishing she really did.

* * *

“Can I keep a trait?” asked Ellen the following Monday.

Her supervisor barely glanced up. “CleanCharacter doesn’t do permanent transfers.”

By Tuesday, the laughter was gone.

Clients like costume changes. Another. Another.

Female-Nathan from speed dating told her it wasn’t working out.

Ellen was too many people to calculate. She was an abuser of “like” and active listening and “that’s so profound!” and talking too fast and talking too slow. And she was nothing: a shape-shifter sheathing a vacuum. She dreaded going home without part of another person and having to lie with herself. Her panic attacks came nightly, and her mimicked smiles felt sharp enough to crack her face.

She was leaving CleanCharacter for the weekend, shoulders hunched, when her supervisor caught her elbow in the revolving doors.

“Look, whatever-your-name-is, off-record, our clients could probably ditch habits themselves if they really put in the time. Personality isn’t static. Not theirs. Not yours. Practice being someone. Practice gets real. Or keep your job. Whatever.” She exited, letting the door hit Ellen’s back.

Ellen trudged to the station, feeling close to breaking.

On the platform beside her waited a stern-faced man and an old woman with a knobbly walking stick. A busker was singing rough-around-the-edges comedy songs to the unimpressed commuter crowd.

Too much. Too many shifting shapes to merge to. Too hollow inside. It was cry or—

Ellen laughed. First shrilly, a valve releasing steam. Then full-chestedly, trying to believe. The song hit an off-colour chorus, and the stern-faced man frowned his disapproval. Her throat caught. Nothingness reached an encompassing hand, promising this wasn’t her, not yet; she could still be the man.

But then the old woman emitted a cackle, and Ellen became her, and the laughter became theirs. Or, just maybe, the woman became Ellen.

* * *

Ⓒ Anna Clark