Rachel brushed her
teeth. She spit. White foam tinged with pink swirled down the drain. The sink
needed cleaning. A glob of neon green toothpaste clung to the rim. Congealed
liquid soap pooled around the faucet. She moved her eyes away from the mess and
captured her gaze in the medicine cabinet mirror.
The shock of seeing
herself brought tears to her eyes.
She couldn’t even
remember the last time she had looked at herself. The image in the silvered
glass did not match the picture of herself she had in her head. She tried to
look away but stared at the person in the mirror the way you stared at an auto
accident.
Her eyes were puffy,
with dark slashes under the pocket of fluid. There weren’t many wrinkles, but
gullies went from the corners of her nostrils and down beside her mouth.
Corpulent flesh swallowed her eyes, nose, and lips. A wobbly turkey neck hung
below her chins.
If she had looked at
herself more often would she have been so shocked? Would she have been able to
prevent the horror that stared back at her? How was it possible that anyone
else could stand to look at her?
She cried great
gulping sobs. Sounds escaped her mouth, louder than the water running from the
faucet. She had forgotten to turn off the water. She cried harder thinking of
the water she wasted, lost down the drain, never recovered. She sucked in her
breath, held it, smashed her lips together and covered her mouth with both
hands. When stars flitted in her vision, she allowed herself to breathe once
more.
Pathetic much?
The empty house didn’t
care how much noise she made or how loud she was. It wouldn’t even echo back at
her despite its size. She was alone after decades of caring for others, and the
house was not a solace. The house now belonged to her alone, but it had never
been her home and was not her home now. She did not belong here. She never did.
She did not belong to anyone, anymore. It wasn’t likely that she ever would
again.
She slammed the lid of
the toilet down. She sat. The cold plastic shocked her naked ass. She leaned
her elbows on her knees, placed her chin on her fists and closed her eyes. The
tingling of cut off nerves in her thighs woke her up. She stood, steadied
herself with the sink and forced herself to look at her face again. She stuck
out her tongue.
God, I hated being
pathetic.
She was free to do
whatever she wanted. She walked around the house naked: through the kitchen and
into the basement. She laid on the beds in all four bedrooms. She went into the
backyard. She dared the neighbors to peak over the fences. The spring breeze
raised bumps on her skin. She went back into the house, crawled into her unmade
bed and slept for the next three days.
Her cell phone rang
several times. She texted brief responses back to her daughter and her sister,
unwilling to chat. She had to maintain some contact, or they’d be on her
doorstep. Seeing her relatives at the funeral had exhausted her.
The next time she
looked at herself, her hair was greasy and stuck out at odd angles. She stank.
Her cheeks smelled from where she drooled and hadn’t brushed her teeth. Now,
she looked hideous: as bad as she felt. Her stomach grumbled. There was no food
in the house, and she was hungry. She smelled. She couldn’t even consider going
to a fast food drive-through.
Fine.
She forced herself
into the shower. As soon as the water hit her face, she cried, drowning in the
hot spray. She sat down, her legs unable to hold her up in her hysteria.
Her heart was breaking. She pressed on her chest trying to stop the pain
she felt there. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her cheek
there. The water ran cold.
She rose, shaking;
turned off the faucets. She walked wet into her bedroom. She grabbed her big,
white terrycloth robe, wrapped in it, and crawled under the blankets. She’d eat
later.
***
For this week's prompt at terribleminds - a song lyric I picked.
"Hello darkness, my old
friend, I've come to talk with you again..." The Sound of Silence
