Author - Essy
Disclaimer - No infringement of copyright was intended here.
Archival - By permission only
Notes - This fic was first written as a response to the Sarah Deathfic challenge on UGL.
The die is cast.
((it echoes))
Rolling on the floor, faces flying.
((it clatters, noisily))
Watched by the hushed crowd until it lands.
((it lands on a corner and balances there, defying gravity))
There is no outcome.
I sit in front of the mirror. Trinkets and toys concealed but not gone. I feel their presence. Lingering memories mock me from dark corners of drawers and cupboards. In the musty crevices of the room, they wait for me to be exposed as a fraud.
But I'm not a fraud.
This is right!
I ignore the voices and reach for the lipstick. The casing is cold and slippery in my hands. The contents are warm. I smear the greasy wax across my lips. My reflection gazes back in bemusement. A child playing dress-up. I long for the safety of the toys. If I free them, will they forgive me?
I am not one of them any more. They befriended me, nurtured me and comforted me. I loved them, then rejected them and repelled them. They have stayed with me in the darkness when I was alone, but not alone. They know my secrets and cannot comprehend.
In outgrowing them, I betrayed them. They will show no mercy now.
((if that is the way it is done...))
I reach out again. Eyeshadow. Glittering brown powder lies deceptively still in its box. The brush swirls on the small tablet of brown. Now the powder is on my eyelids. Scattering onto my lashes. Falling into my eyes.
I cannot cry before the make-up. I often wept with the animals and dolls, but I cannot ever cry again.
((I have forsworn their company))
I stare into the mirror, tears welling but not falling. I realise that this is all I have now. The make-up. It will be the only one to see my true face, but unlike the toys it will despise me for the sight.
((and that is the way I must do it, because that is the way it is done))
It's like walking a tightrope that's been set on fire. You have to fall to one side or the other, but you don't know which is best and you don't have time to decide because your feet have already started to burn.
I run into the bathroom and look desperately around. There are no toys here. Nothing to whisper of my sticky gasping betrayal. No make up either. Nothing to urge me onward, further and faster, without ever offering me a shred of comfort or hope. There is just the cabinet. A temple of stability. It was here through the toys and will be here for the make-up.
((you can't take anything for granted))
And suddenly I see the third option that was hidden in here the whole time. I enter the temple. The pills are small and bitter, they will free me. I worship the food of the temple and I drink of the river.
And on the small unscorched piece of rope the cabinet provided, I arrange my feet, bend my legs and jump high into the air until I am flying.
I needn't fall.
The die moves.
((blown by an invisible wind))
It tumbles away and falls through a crack in the slabs.
((lost forgotten gone))
And the assembled crowd begin to cheer.