Duessa grooming

*

Duessa lingered in the ladies room of the coffee shop near the gym. She pondered her bag of wrinkles. Put on this one, take off that. Who shall we be today?

She had eyes like light blue stones. They were great for girl to girl talks and they also fascinated men.

The person they no longer interested was herself. The mirror sagged in weariness to see her face once again. Evil is banal and derivative. There's nothing there to keep you getting up in the morning.

She placed a thin line at the side of her nose.

Duessa was weary, ready to die. Could she do it?

She knocked her bag at the side of the sink and all the pictures of Elf fell out. Daughter dear, you hate me, I don't care. As long as I can have just a wee bit of control.

She smiled at her mug in the mirror and rearranged all the byways. A woman came into the room, stared at the pictures on the floor and frowned. Duessa pointed her finger at her and cursed silently, watched the stranger clutch her stomach.

Why isn't evil fun anymore? she just had to wonder. After all, what profit was there for her in someone else's pain? No artistry, no anything. I think my imitation life is a waste of time. Depression fell like a weighted blanket. And nothing like Zoloft was ever going to work on her, not on her.

Her misery was an itch that no medicine in the world would ever scratch. She couldn't even feel proud about that -- it was just a fact.

*

Later she sat in the coffee shop pondering. When the coffee came she gave a quick taste and then forced herself to swallow some. Gran dio! It had the taste of sulphur, the aroma of sulphur, its essence was sulphur. It left terrible orange burn marks down the sides of her soul. She began to retch in a delicate way so that no one could see, while behind her paramedics came to take away the woman stranger in the ladies' room. Duessa cried into her coffee but the tears were of no consequence, not for her. Because the tears were only for herself, they were for no one. Her daughter would probably never see them.

So her tears led to nothing, meant nothing. She waited and waited for her heart to feel "strangely warmed". But the warmth didn't come, not for her. And never would. And never would.

*