When the new season started, I should have paid more attention.  Such a stupid mistake, three laces still left looped through my buttonholes, and I'd not been out of the apartment more than a few minutes when they picked me up and threw me in a tiny, tiny box.  When they opened it again, I was guided over to a chair at a small well-lit table.  The enforcer walked into the light and stood, menacing in his sleek black corduroy jacket and fishnet cravat.

"This is most disappointing, you know," he droned.  "You were doing so well!  76% proficiency, three helping-stars, twenty points in splendidness, ..."  As the list went on, I wondered what my fate would be.  Surely all these merits of mine would count for something?

He finished his train of praise and sat down.  "Still, rules are rules.  You are not registered as deficient in any of the relevant capacities, so the standard punishment should apply."

"Even for miscalculating my laces?"  I felt my hopes slipping away.

The enforcer stood up, faced away from the table, heaved a sigh.  Then he turned, both suddenly and slowly, and pushed his face right at me.  "One lace, one bead, one eyelash, we cannot bend the rules to suit.  What would happen if we let you get away with it, hmm?  Too many people have seen you, too many people know, too many people would be let down by the system if we overlook even a tiny detail!"

He paced away and back again, slightly calmer now.  I tried to tell myself that it was all a game, that they were doing this to scare me.  I had a brief spark of hope that maybe I wasn't doomed, but that was soon quashed at the sound of the enforcer's whiny drone starting up again.

"You've offended people as well as the system, you know.  The report shows that people were averting their gaze on that street.  Your good character now impugned by a reputation for rebellion."

I wanted to explain.  To tell him that I'm not a rebel, I just miscalculated.  To ask him for another chance to be correctly dressed.  To demonstrate to him that I could wear the right length skirt, the right height shoe, the right width tie, the right colour of eye.  I was petrified under that harsh light, in that green chair, clashing with everything else in the room.

There was an interminable silence in the room, the calm before the storm.  Over in a dark corner, beyond the light, a machine whirred and clicked.  My fate had been decided, printed out in glittery ink on shiny ruffle-edged paper.

--*--

"And now, appearing for the fourth time this week, the amazing! -" (the announcer pauses for breath and dramatic effect, as always) "- the incredible! -" (another pause, the crowd are on the edge of their green seats, a uniform sea of PVC jackets and spectacle frames) "- the one, the only, Miss. Dark. Feverrrrr!"

I make my way into the arena, trudging along on my 20-cm platform boots, the shiny white skirt flapping in the artificial wind.  I'm glad that, at least for this contest, my oversized sleeves hide my bruised arms.  Already the music is getting louder, the beat is getting heavier, and the crowd are cheering and shouting.

I stop at the edge of the arena, and look around at them all, all the conformists, all the identikit nobodies.  Not a centimetre too short, not a faded hue or scruffed sleeve.  Useless, now, to compare myself to them.  The rat race that nobody sees you winning, and everyone sees you losing.  On the edge of that arena I tie back my synthetic hair, adjust my goggles and put my glowsticks in place.  My pause isn't just for dramatic effect, it isn't just so that I can get ready.  Maybe this is the time that I stop before the music does.