Fashionable

It was a mid-morning start, which meant the traffic was a little lighter and the gangs of retirees were taking over the cafes. I pulled up next to a trendy family car – Upper middle class.

I couldn’t see the driver. All I could see was the left arm of the passenger.

The wrist was decorated with the cuffs of a women’s power suit and a gold bracelet that was probably purchased in 1993. The bony hand, barely visible through the window tint, was worn and stressed.

Why isn’t she at work? It’s past 10…

Why wasn’t this independent hand on the steering wheel?

She had probably just come from the doctors. An elbow so casually, so… tensely resting on the window could only mean bad news. Her husband, or dare I say, old friend who’s always loved her but never been able to crack through her tough exterior, had driven her for moral support.

He left his car at hers because she’d rather be dead being seen in his bomb.

What’s the point? I mean, what’s the point of that gold bracelet? It doesn’t impress me much. I wonder if she was rubbing it in her anxiety as the doctor told her the news.

I turn up the music in my car. I wonder if I do it to impress the retirees with amazing heavy metal.

The status symbol is too heavy. It becomes a chain… A metal chain that pulls her along.

What hit her the most in her appointment? The realisation that she’s going to die, or the realisation that she’d wasted her life.

The car, the chain, the suit, the nail polish…

The skin, the muscles, the bones…

The heart.

Let’s strip it all away.

She’s protecting herself. The little girl she once was… She was hurt by the world. So, she put on her armor. She wasn’t enough just being a shining light, a pure spirit. She needed to project and deflect. If she fails, and she will, it’s because of the suit, the chain, the car, the lack of skills… never because of who she is.

She’s not a failure… She’s not…

Written by Randall Evans

This is The Vile Mint

 

Fashionable