Slow down you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile.
Sitting alone on a counter-style desk of a chain fast food is Her. It’s 4.40am and she’s already slurping a tall glass of strawberry smoothie, ignoring the rumbling of her stomach. Her red curly hair keeps falling on her forehead, as if reminding her to stop writing prompts on her note app and start replying to text messages.
She slurps another sip of the smoothie, fixes her spectacles, and stares blankly ahead. People in uniform are walking in and out of the scene. Her flight is still three hours from now, her loneliness is six hours late.
She likes to think that the cute guy sitting across her is also writing a prompt (about her, preferably) but who cares about a woman who doesn’t even look like one. Whose attire resembles that of an 18 year old boy left feral at a skate shop.
An hour earlier, she went to the duty free shop to spray some intoxicating fragrances. Fragrances that fit only for those with luscious long hair, curled lashes, and soft voices. Those that deserve to be cared for — not too independent — not too ambitious. Warm. Young. Beautiful.
In her thirty years of life, she was only called beautiful three times. One, by her mum. One, by her friend’s mum. One, by a young girl at a skate rink. To her, being called brave and strong is better than being called beautiful. That doesn’t erase the fact that she wants to feel beautiful like those girls with long legs and kind smiles. Not hot, not brave, not strong, not smart. Beautiful. Like a fake plastic coconut grove sitting in front of her.
She finishes her drink and throws the cup in the bin. She looks for a sign. A sign that allows her to board her next flight and disappear. Disappear in her idea of beauty and her nonsensical way of thinking that somewhere out there outside of liminal spaces and airports — there is a place that accepts her, wants her, and calls her Beautiful despite her obsession to burn the entire world to the ground.
