Disclaimer: I own nothing! I have a lease.

Jaynesdingleberries presents: A Day Without Tears

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I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandius- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Eleanor's Perspective:

"What good are you?" she asked the mirror bitterly, but received no answer but her own heart-sore visage staring back at her. She sighed in response to her own question and looked down at her hands where they loosely grasped the edges of the bathroom sink; they were good hands she supposed, wide palmed and long fingered. They were fit for hard work and were bigger and stronger than most women's hands; in that way they matched the rest of her.

Eleanor was a farm-girl, there was no getting around that fact; she was stocky and solidly built with wide shoulders and limbs thick with muscle and at 5'7" she usually was taller than the other girls making her feel bulky and gigantic in comparison. She wasn't without a layer of feminine padding either; on less muscular women the shape would be called curvy but on her it looked less flattering and she was well aware of it.

She was more than aware of other things she considered to be defects. The space between her front teeth was a bit too wide, her face was a bit too round, her forehead a tad too high, and her auburn hair was slightly too brown. She had a list of other things too…she was tone-deaf, tactless, and sometimes a bit clumsy.

But she did try to improve these things. She found a nice shade of red auburn that looked good on her; she learned how to smile without showing her teeth; she worked hard, walked everywhere that she could, and never sang where people could hear her. She learned to keep a polite blank face when dealing with other people, always careful in how she talked to them, making sure she wasn't offensive, and she kept a wary eye out for things that could easily be tripped on or bumped into. She made friends who shared her often oddball sense of humor and was open and carefree at times. But she never ever left herself open to be hurt.

Except this time.

She hated crushes, she really did. They were little insidious things that could blind a person to reality; Eleanor had been blinded, and blindsided. It wasn't as if she had "set her hopes high", as her friend Samantha was wont to say. Eleanor didn't hope for the buff guys or the handsome sweathearts; those types of guys tended to like the small girls with slim bodies and delicate hands who were at least a head shorter than them. No, she had crushed on Aaron, a tall but average guy she hung out with; he wasn't really handsome, or buff, or even that couth…but she didn't care too much.

And now, her hopes were shattered, she looked in the mirror and stilled her face to absolute calm. Aaron had a girlfriend, she had found out today. A small delicate girl with huge brown eyes, blond hair, and a tinny laugh. But Eleanor was nothing if not fair; Tiffany was very pretty, and when it came to psychology reports she was boss; she was funny, witty, and at times downright cute.

So Eleanor, a stoic steady girl called Ellie by most, let the hope go. It hurt, a deep and twisting hurt, but on a farm you knew how to deal with many degrees of pain. So she took in a deep breath and held it for a count of ten and expelled it. Then did it again. She blinked cool blue eyes and checked in the mirror; nope no tears.

Eleanor pushed away from the sink, to all appearances calm and controlled, unaffected by the last two hours of her life. It was time to go back to class and do some sculpture. That is what she was good at, clay. Inanimate and lifeless, forgiving if her hands were a little too rough. It was good.

She turned away from the restroom mirror and went out the heavy door to look on a bright and beautiful California afternoon at college. She sighed again, whishing she hadn't just left a part of her inside.

A part that just wanted to be with someone.