Flash Fiction Friday
A tiny story to read...
Hi friends, here’s my latest flash story in this new regular feature. Hope you enjoy it!
With love,
Gloss Finish
The day after she bought the new lipstick, the third one that month, her bottom lip vanished. Staring at her sleepy-eyed self in the mirror, she blinked three times. Definitely gone.
Ready for work in the same grey suit for the same old day, she slicked the golden gloss on her top lip. It looked great. You couldn’t really notice that it only had a single lip to gild. Not that anyone ever looked at her that closely anyway.
Another humdrum day in her cubicle passed typing numbers into boxes.
On the way home she treated herself to a visit to the National Gallery. Even did a sketch of her own, sitting in front of her favourite Monet. If only she could get in one of the boats and sail miles away.
When she popped to the loo on her way out, her bottom lip had reappeared. She slathered it in the golden gloss, glad it had returned.
***
In the morning, both lips were gone. She threw the useless lipstick in the bin, stepped closer to the mirror and clenched her teeth. Horror film. No way she could go to work.
She phoned in sick, wrapped a scarf around her face and headed to the park. There was a Grayson Perry exhibition at the Serpentine and there were only a few days left. She’d been meaning to go for ages. But going to see other peoples’ creations often made her sad. Sadder than usual. If only she’d been strong enough to stand up to Dad and do the degree she’d really wanted, maybe she wouldn’t be spending her time making spreadsheets, but making art instead.
After walking round the exhibition twice, she stopped in front of the Puff Piece pot. Read the message on the side “Sell your house to buy one” over and over again.
Dad had drummed it in to her that she had to get on the property ladder as soon as she could. Start with a flat then upgrade to a house a few years after that. So she’d been slaving away in that cubicle, squirrelling away all the money she could, watching the numbers on her online banking slowly grow. Never doing any of the things she really wanted to do.
All that money she’d saved could be put to much better use. She’d get on a plane and go to China, Japan, Vietnam, all those places she’d dreamed of for so long but had never let herself visit. She’d wander around and make art of her own. It wasn’t a waste of time.
She went outside, sat on a bench and wrote her resignation email to her boss. Pressed send without even reading it back. Then she gave notice on her flat. Opening the calendar app, she picked a date three days after her job would end and booked a one-way flight from Heathrow to Hanoi. When the confirmation email landed in her inbox, her shoulders dropped and her face turned up to the spring sun.
The clench in her stomach, which she had stopped noticing it had been there so long, slowly unfurled.
Floating to the tube station, her mind filled her remaining days until take-off with the shedding tasks to be done. She’d get rid of everything. She didn’t need any of the things she owned. All she needed was a new backpack and the few clothes that could fit into that. And her sketch pad and pencils of course.
Sitting down in the train carriage, she pulled the scarf from her face. Her reflection in the window opposite showed both lips back where they belonged: plump, luscious, smiling — with no need for lipstick at all.
This story hasn't been published before. It is part of the flash fiction collection I am working on, which is on the theme of loss and nearly finished.
Inspiration for this story came from thinking about the ways our bodies tell us something is wrong, before we will, or can, face up to things that we need to change. The protagonist needs to speak up and say what she really wants so I knew it had to be expressed through her mouth in some way. And I also wanted to explore how we have been led to believe that buying stuff, from the very small to the very large, will be enough to fill that ache inside of us that comes from not following our hearts.
Writing prompt: Write a story, or scene in a longer piece, where a character’s body is telling them something. Do they take notice?
I really liked this story, Amanda. Thanks for sharing! ❤️
Excellent! Love this, Amanda. I enjoyed your author’s note as well.