I've written four little character vignettes. These characters were all from a circus show I created/directed/designed/performed in for my final project at Hampshire College. I was very focused on ideas of family, cultural identity, the roles of women in rural Fascist Italy, and dealing with grief.

For as many people as there are who will follow, blindly, the expectations laid out for them, there will always be those who strive for self-truth over a misplaced sense of obligation.

Men who do this, if they are not derelict drunks, are considered enterprising. Women, on the other hand, become mad, untouchable, unfeminine, unruly; women who do this are called witches.

Because what other reason but to be the downfall of mankind would a woman want to educate herself? For what reason would she want to learn medicine, or blacksmithing, or butchery? Why, for the love of Our Lord Jesus, would a woman ever, ever want to be the master of her own fate? And what cruel society would burden such a creature as Woman with such an unladylike responsibility?

"I am not a sheep," says the Witch. So instead, she becomes associated with the goat – stubborn and demonic.

"I like goats," says the Witch, and she compromises her popularity, trading it in for notoriety. Maybe sometimes she's lonely, but she reminds herself that she is brave for breaking the mold.

Brave, or stupid? She's decided that maybe, sometimes, they're the same thing.