...Penelope Spectra...
My mother wasn't ugly, but she wasn't pretty either. She wasn't poor, or rich. Certainly my mother was not a monster, although at the same time was a good deal less than empathetic. My mother was, however, intelligent. Perhaps not to the level of genius, but close enough to it. She, a single mother with one daughter, managed to carve out a decent living for us. I never concerned myself with common necessities, even while seeing more and more fellow school-goers come to class with no shoes and ribs showing. Their parents could not properly provide for them the same way my single one could with me. Many times, the other parents couldn't provide at all. To most then, it was nothing short of a miracle how my mother and I lived as members of the middle class. After all, it wasn't too difficult to realize that my mother had me from her time as a 'liberated woman' in the roaring twenties. My mother would describe my father as a handsome playboy that probably had a multitude of other young daughters across the country. We couldn't rely on him for anything. Fortunately, we didn't need to.
My mother was nothing short of resourceful. Balancing honest work with the less-than-honest, there was always food on the table thanks to her. And me? I needn't do anything more than go to school and stay pretty. Unlike my mother, I was truly beautiful in the looks department, even as a young child. I could sing too, and talk sweetly out of nearly any trouble I got into. My mother knew all of this, just as she knew how to use it to our advantage. Again and again, I would enter every beauty pageant and talent show available to a girl my age. Often times I would reenter the same contest the next year, although under a different name. Astonishing, what my mother could do with a makeover and what I could do with a slight change in the pitch of my tone and general attitude. No one ever realized that I was the star of last year's contest. Not even after I won several times in a row. Each time they would celebrate the "new beauty princess", completely oblivious.
It came to a point that I even forgot what my actual hair color was, so often it was dyed, cut and styled. It came to a point that I was unsure of how to act around anyone besides my mother, so used was I to switching personalities. I cared little for these developments. As long as I stayed young and pretty, all was well… A few years after I became a young adult, my mother died of an illness. It was disappointing, we were an excellent team, but I managed to get on just fine by myself. Within a few years I had several influential men wrapped around my little finger. Unfortunately, the most successful were already married and would not divorce for me. It would be too terrible for their image and business, to divorce a wife for some mysterious lover, no matter how beautiful. I learned this lesson the hard way. Many times I was tempted to, ah, eliminate the competition. For all of my deceit though, I'd never done something quite so brash.
I couldn't risk it. So I searched. Once again, years passed, but I did find what I was looking for. A successful and willing bachelor. Within months we were married. I had him eating out of the palm of my hand. For a time, it was glorious. It was all I could ever hope for. Yet… time flies when one is having fun, isn't that so? One day I woke up to notice little crevices below my eyes. To notice a strand of gray in my otherwise perfect locks. It had begun. I was no longer young. Still, I was determined to save my beauty. I succeeded to an extent. With surgeries and cosmetics, I was a sight to behold for decades to come. Even so, I found my husband sleeping with some harlot. She was no older than nineteen. No aged beauty, apparently, can outdo the beauty of youth. When I wasn't looking, she had snuck her way into my husband's heart- and bed. Fortunately for me, my husband refused to divorce. It would be too terrible for his public image.
The irony was not lost on me.
In the end, I died of old age. My skin withered, my hair lifeless, my eyes dull… Sickening. I should have died young. I thought bitterly. I found myself a ghost, floating invisibly over my open casket. I was attending my own funeral. Unable to bear looking at my deceased carcass any longer, I turned toward the audience. The priest's droning was putting the audience to sleep, I noticed, not inspiring an ounce of nostalgia or pity. The eyes of all those attending were dry. Expressions, nonchalant. No one even attempted to appear forlorn or wistful. Well, actually, my husband and children seemed wistful. My husband, wistful in thought of his young lover. My children, all teenagers at the time, longing to look at my will- those despicable, miserable critins. But they really weren't miserable, were they? No one was. No one except me.
Then I thought, I can change that.
Girl-of-Action- So I've had this sitting on my drive for a while, and finally decided to post it. This will be a collection of one-shots, all pertaining to the ghosts (or half-ghosts) deaths and obsessions. I don't know why I decided to write Spectra first- her story just came to me. Obsessed with beauty and youth while hateful of teenagers… And it would seem fitting that she technically got everything she wanted in life, died of entirely natural causes, and yet was still left unsatisfied. That's the existence of a leech, for ya, I guess...
Thanks for reading!