Instalment Ninety Nine


Lachrymose was the colour of rain, so pale as to be almost translucent. And like rain, she was liable to strike you in the face if you tried to look at her too long.

The ripples in her lips, if you examined them closely, were like waves. Or waves were like her lips. Cresting and falling, likely to drown you. When the blood ran out of her face, those lips were the colour of spray curling off the back of a wave, sharpened to a sneer.

She never used a mirror and refused to pass them by. She stood by puddles to catch her reflection. Glimpsing herself upside down with her head in the clouds was a rare joy. Sometimes, alone, when it all became too much, she would fill a basin with tears. Consumed by loathing, she would scrub the floors and counters to sparkling with those tears, entombing herself in sadness.

The one thing she knew was secrets need to be told, so she told them to the drain, which carried them out to sea, like a message in a bottle never to be uncorked.

“I am deserted,” she would sob to the sink, for none to hear.

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