The Precipice
She sits on a precipice. Not a figurative one but a literal one.
It is not a cliff, but a side table. An orange side table. And she hates it.
Since she can remember she has been glued to the precipice with a sad view of a sad kitchen. Tired melamine covers the shabby cupboards like picked scabs. Crustaceous knobs draw the eye like pimples on a blooming teen. Repulsive. The paint could be peeled off with a plastic knife, offering no more resistance than makeup off a washed up tramp.
She feels like a tramp.
She wants to feel beautiful and loved, like everyone. She will one day blossom again. Into unmatched beauty. But only for a brief moment in time. More than some, she laments. Does that keep her going?
Maybe.
They argue, and don’t hide it from her anymore. He says horrible words but the other soothes him with words and her touch. “It will happen when it happens.” A life lesson for all. All the hopeless?
She is anchored to the precipice in dirt so putrid it does not even touch the earth. The ‘pot’ is meant to be life-giving, but she feels imprisoned by it. Separate from … life. And yet this anchor rocks gently, and she could fall so easily. She hopes some nights when the house is quiet. Maybe it will be the dog? But it is too stupid, she ponders, to even accidently tip her over.
So much hatred courses through her veins, but deep down she knows it is because they are right. Why won’t she blossom this year? Or ever again? Does toying with their emotions make her happy? Does controlling one’s hope of beauty drive her mad with lust?
Probably.
She was taken when she was beautiful, perfect. Isn’t that enough? How dare they ask for more. Now she is plain. Plain as the dirt at her feet.
Plain as the day she was born.