October 2024 Flash Lit 3:1 - From Head to Toe

Fran looked in the mirror over the cracked sink in the bathroom.  She imagined the montage from all those movies.  There she was in the glass, the very picture of Before with home-cut bangs and a button about to shinny down a loose thread to escape from her blouse.

She saw herself wander into the massive department store—the kind that she was pretty sure didn’t really exist anymore—clutching the single correct accessory, a credit card.  A chic but kindly salesperson pounced upon her.  Scenes from the spa ensued.  Hair in a towel turban, cucumber slices on her eyes.  Toes splayed with rubber dividers, pink and smooth.  Snippets of hair on the floor. 

 

Then the dressing room:  the old clothes in a puddle on the floor while lacy underthings and fashionable everything flew through the air.

 

At the cosmetics counter, dabs of this and that adorned her skin until, with a last slash of red lipstick and spritz of Chanel Number Five, the salesperson pronounced her done.

 

The camera would pan up from the stilettos to the artfully tousled curls.  Head to toe, a new person.

 

In the films, no one ever had to pay that credit card bill.  Fran sighed and the button dropped into the sink and down the drain.