Flash Fiction Project
She sat in the illumination of the vanity staring at her own reflection. She studied how the light caught on her hair, reflecting brightly between the the deep waves of ink, accentuating its lustre. Reaching forward she broke her gaze and retrieved her powder brush, and in a disinterested manner began to stroke her face creating a soft, matte complexion. She repeated the mantra as she did every night for the past 60 years. Powder, pencil, shadow and rouge. Over and over counting the years down.
Her thoughts coalesced on the faces of lovers past. There was Joseph, tall and strong, but lacking in character. And George, kind and sweet and the consummate companion. There were others without names, some without faces, some just mere memories of her own ghost. A flash of smoke and fading of light. They trickled through her mind, like leaves atop a meandering brook, over stones and around felled branches before joining the larger expanse of time's pool.
She heard laughter and tasted wine. She felt surprise and horror and love and melancholy.
"Mia, it is time." She caught Al's refection behind her own, standing in the doorway to remind her of the curtain call.
"Oh. Of course." She turned and reassured him with a smile, "I'll just put a bit of color upon my lips and be right out." He smiled back.
Al knew nothing of her past, and it would be a matter of time before it would start to give her away. The years did that. They tore at you, and the person behind your eyes was always older than they could even imagine. It had been five years already. Five years and soon the questions would start. She had decided long ago that she would circumvent the inevitable questions, she had the stamina for such things now. Things the aeons had taught her. Do not give yourself away, and kill it before it can kill you. Because eventually, it always comes to that. People cannot confront these things and not rally against it.
She brought the deep ruby paint to her lips and carefully played out the last steps before standing. She breathed deeply, checked her reflection again and laughed that grating, inhuman, cold laugh she never could abandon.
She took to the stage and sang her heart out. She broke a dozen hearts and captured twice as many. So sad that by tomorrow she would be gone, she would be in another place, known by another name and loved by another man.
Al never would see it coming. Al would be meet her gaze with the knowledge that he had been preyed upon, and she the most deadly of predators. She would watch as his life would still, his processes still and his soul to depart. She would count herself damned again. She would be damned until she decided to end it. But she never could quite reconcile her own death. She could only dwell upon the allure of the hunt, the catch, the kill. And when she would leave them drained, they would at least see her for who she really was.
A monster, wearing a mask of youth and a dress of satin.
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