June 2024 Flash Lit 5.2 - Passionfruit

“I’ll have the facial with the charcoal passionfruit mask, the citrus sugar body scrub, and the deep tissue massage,” Margie said.

The spa attendant in her white clothes nodded.  Margie thought:  she looks like some kind of TV chef and I’ve just told her how I want my meat prepared.  As she lay on the massage table later between the caress of the high thread count sheet and the hurts-so-good pressure of Fiona the massage therapist’s hands, she thought that at least she’d die a happy steak.  Didn’t they massage the Wagyu cows?  And the birdsong and flute soundtrack surely imparted some extra tenderness.

 

The thing was, Margie was supposed to stop thinking.  This spa vacation was intended to slow her down, disengage her from the hamster wheel of her thoughts.  Maybe that half hour on the treadmill this morning before yoga had been counterintuitive.

 

Margie couldn’t help thinking, about steaks or hamsters, about how spa treatments were described like wines:  two fruits and a random object.  Cherry, berry, and leather.  Lemon, prickly pear, and oak.  Melon, mint, and smoke.  Okay, mint wasn’t a fruit, but close enough.

 

There would be neither steak nor wine included in her dinner.  This place was vegan and dry and doubtless chock-full of antioxidants.  Margie still felt resentful about her breakfast of half a cup of coconut chia pudding garnished with three berries and a chamomile tisane.

 

“You’re holding a lot of stress in your neck,” Fiona murmured, probing with expert fingers.

 

Margie couldn’t help it:  “No shit.”