Week 3 Story: Beauty Within, a cautionary story of Shurpanakha

There once was a woman named Shurpanakha, that despite being the sister of a highly successful tech CEO, Ravana, could not find a man due to being horrendously ugly.  However, one day, out at a local coffee shop, she saw the most handsome man she had ever seen, and for her it was love at first site.  She waited for the barista to call out the man's name, and learned he was Rama.  Shurpanakha did not approach him, however, due to her own horrendous visage.

Later that day, Ravana came across his sister crying, and asked her what was wrong.  She explained her encounter with Rama, and pleaded with her brother for anything in his tech company which might help her.  Ravana told her there was one product in the prototype stage, that took a person's ideal image of themselves and modified their face to what was desired, intended as a tool to assist plastic surgeons.  Shurpanakha begged her brother to let her be a test for this prototype, and he repeatedly told her that it was dangerous, that the neural interface was not a completely safe concept and several test patients reported "people" in their heads.  Shurpanakha told her brother that there was never too much risk in this case, and how could he deny her the one chance to be happy in this life.

Neural Implant, from Human Enhancement

Ravana acceded to her request, and so the first stage was an implant placed in the side of her head, designed to read her mind and discover what was her desired image.  After a week of this device in her head, it was time for the procedure.  After the procedure, Shurpanakha woke up, and saw that she was the exact image of the woman she wanted to be.  She set out with renewed confidence, and waited at the same coffee shop she had seen Rama before.  After several days, Shurpanakha finally saw him there, and went up to talk to Rama.  He politely talked for several minutes, but excused himself and left quickly.  This filled Shurpanakha with rage, and she went to her brother again, to get another procedure, because obviously she was not beautiful enough for this man.  Ravana once again protested, but the tears of his sister overcame him and he let her go ahead with the procedure.

The second time Shurpanakha woke up, she saw herself even more beautiful than before, but could not shake the feeling that something was watching her from her own mind.  However, she ignored this, overcome by the desire to finally receive the love she desired.  Again at the coffee shop, she saw Rama, and again attempted to converse with him.  As before, he politely conversed for a minute or two before leaving.  So Shurpanakha had a third procedure, a fourth procedure, and a fifth procedure, due to the same result occurring every time she went to the coffee shop.  After the 5th procedure, she felt this other consciousness in her mind, the ugly version of herself that she tried to repress.  This version talked with and berated Shurpanakha, calling her worthless, ugly, shallow, less of a human than when she had her original form.  This occurred because the neural implant had taken away so much of Shurpanakha's image of herself, that the only thing left in her mind was two warring consciousness', the ugly version seeking to bring her down, and her current self.

As with each attempt, Shurpanakha went to the coffeehouse, this time without confidence but with a voice telling her she always would be the same ugly woman who no one ever looked at.  Once again she went to talk to him, but this time he pointed to a woman alongside him, who Shurpanakha had failed to notice, and said "Sita here is my beloved bride, and there is no woman in the world who could tempt me to leave her."  Hearing this cause Shurpanakha to snap, the ugly version of herself in complete control of her mind, screaming, swearing, calling Sita ugly, pale, misshapen, of being no where comparable to Shurpanakha's beauty.  She ran out of the coffeehouse, back once again for this procedure, but there was no more beauty to be found in her mind.  Shurpanakha came out of the procedure a horrendous creature, without ears or nose, with a horribly scarred and deformed face.  The ugly version of her consciousness cackled and laughed, for she now had control of this consciousness, and it was her version of life and beauty, that she would get to imprint on Shurpanakha from this day.  All that was left of the part of Shurpanakha's mind that could think of beauty and Rama could only sit and watch, a voice calling out against the ugly consciousness, but too weak to act, for too many of her thoughts of beauty and love were gone, taken away by a machine.

Bibliography:
Indian Myth and Legend, Donald Mackenzie, Source
Author's note:

In the original story, Shurpanakha is a rakshasi, the sister of the rakshasa king Ravana.  She sees Rama and desires him, and changes herself to be stunningly beautiful.  Rama, however, faithful to his wife Sita, rejects her, and instead passes her on to his brother Lakshmana.  Lakshmana teases her so she attacks in her rage, and in the fight has her ears and nose chopped off.  For my own story, I thought this would be a good "Black Mirror" type story, something illustrating a mild technological horror story, warning about the dangers of modern tech.  Instead of magic causing her image to change, I put a machine, with the unknown side effect of slightly stealing the conscious of the person who is letting it read their mind.  This leads to the scenario where the ugly version of her mind, the part she represses, takes power because the part of her mind envisioning beauty is slowly being siphoned off with every procedure she undergoes.