Three Word Wednesday

Well I'm here, but what follows will be in the lap of the gods. (If you want to skip this set of word usage and go straight to the tale, please feel free to scroll down to the bold TWW) I thought I'd had a breakthrough with the writing but I'm still spending days staring at a blank page, my muse having picked up his bourbon and wandered back to whatever Dionysian booze-up he was at before.  Excuse enough to collapse in a heap and feel sorry for myself, but no...

A friend has refused to abandon me, instead pushing me to keep trying. I want to give up. It hurts to stare at that blank screen, a screen which filled with a constant flow of words only a matter of months ago. I don't want to do it, keep sitting there with zero results. This friend is impatient with me, the gradual change from gentle sympathy to 'Just do something about it and stop whining' slow but inexorable.

Don't let me give the wrong impression. My friend has every right to feel frustrated and to try to give me a swift kick in the rear for I can be insufferably pathetic. I know this... I can't stop it, but I do acknowledge it. Perhaps there is a part of me that quite likes feeling sorry for myself. I don't want to think that but it could be so. What some people might see as harsh and unfeeling is actually what I need. To be precise, I need someone who isn't going to gentle me into a happy state of self-pity, but rather chase me until I am cornered and face the fact that I have to do something about this.

For as long as I can remember I have defined myself as a storyteller, a writer. Am I about to let that slip away? I'll admit it, I came close, but thanks to my friend and a little bit of willpower, I'm going to keep trying.

So, to the tale... It may not be up to what I consider my usual standards but I hope you will take something from my efforts, even if it is only a sense of superiority *chuckle*. I only ask one thing - whatever you do, don't pity me. I'm excellent at that and need no help! Instead, maybe leave a note about your experiences of writer's block and tips on breaking the wall down, if you have some.

Bright Blessings, Mojo

TWW Entry

The slide had been gradual. She couldn’t be precise about its onset, but the red dress had been her wake-up call. Naked in her bedroom, Anna stared into the glass, bought in her teens. She smiled, remembering its purchase, the uncertain looks from friends and comments asking if she was certain about putting it in the bedroom. Her reply had been constant and precise.

“I want it where I can see myself at my most vulnerable, naked from the shower or from sleep.”

There had never been a clear answer, but she knew about the pitying looks and shakes of the head, shared when they thought she couldn’t see.

She’d been well taught, her mother a constant source of strength and pride. One line always came to the fore when Anna’s mother swam up from her memories, the woman passed to the great cake shop in the sky far too soon. ‘Anna, you are beautiful, in whatever form you choose and let no-one put their prejudices where they can blind you to that truth.’

Highly intelligent, strikingly beautiful, bubbling with wit and joie de vive, Anna’s educational years had been hell. Like many before, and so many who would come after her, food had become a comfort. She learned to abandon her slender shape and sculpted cheekbones, sinking them beneath layers of fat where they did not threaten. Slowly, as her weight increased, so did her social circle. A fat girl was allowed to be smart; she was no threat to boyfriends of the dimbos.

Ten years of fat had settled heavily across her heart, her doctor finally giving her an ultimatum, the food or death. As slowly as she had gained it, she shed it, the beautiful face of her teenage years surfacing and revealing a maturity which seemed to reassure those women who had once feared her. She allowed herself to once more swim with dolphin-like grace and speed, to run with the sleek power of a cheetah and to dance.

Dancing had been the love of her life, her one desire to be a ballerina. Her mother had told her constantly that It was possible and she had believed it with all her heart; until the day her dance teacher had asked her not to come because she couldn’t bear to see the other girls laughing at the fat girl who wanted to be a prima ballerina. Now she had it back. She knew a career with the national ballet company was out of reach, but she could train, become a professional dance teacher. Entry into a salsa competition had necessitated the purchase of a new dress, the red dress, her epiphany dress.

She glanced at the dress, hanging on the back of the door inside its plastic protection. To her it looked like a condom covering the one thing which could impregnate her with her worst nightmare, doubt. She had never doubted in her life, always aware of the better choice in any given situation. Until that morning she had never known a second of uncertainty, and then she’d slipped into the red dress and looked into the mirrored box of a changing room. Staring back at her from every angle was a woman she didn’t recognize. A woman with not an ounce of fat on her body, a supermodel with a fake white smile and hair straight out of a L’Oreal advert, wrapped in a red dress. A red sheath of binding, compressing her natural shape, her desires, into a sausage-skin which would bulge and burst with glorious abandon if only given the chance.

She’d bought the dress, wandered home in a daze and stood before the mirror ever since. Well, with one minor stop on the way, but that could wait. For now she was content to stare at her hip-bones carving through alabaster skin, at a belly almost concave in its efforts to not exist. She gazed at the skin of her neck, a marble white column without a line to its name. A quick shift of focus and she could take in the softly swelling breasts above that shrinking stomach, breasts which had never quite given in, which attracted men with a beelike devotion, breasts responsible for the plastic surgeon brochures on her coffee table.

That last thought made her cast her eyes to the ceiling, wondering if her mother could see her, hear her as she spoke.

“Oh mum, I’m so sorry. I forgot who I was, when I was truly me. I thought I had to hide, comply with those prejudices you warned me about. Do you recognize her?” Anna gestured to the leggy stick creature in the glass, “I don’t and I want me back. I hope you can see that I finally understand.”

Anna dumped herself onto the bed and reached for the square, gaudily pink box she had left there. A box she’d picked up on her way home. A box she had at first hugged guiltily to her chest, but now flung open with joyous relief. As she lifted out the first jewel-like bun, glistening with chocolate decadence, she smiled and spoke to the world at large.

“Let’s see if a fat girl can dance.”

(Gill 27/5/10)