Part 2 Make-up
Twenty five minutes of billowing farts isn't exactly flowery.
Attempting a trace is impossible unless you are the taken for granted
other.
Fartners in crime, as my Dad would call it. But undetected she fluffs her blush on, careful, a rush of fake blood to her face. Like an embarrassment. Caught in the act, stealing a cookie. Or condoms. Wisps of little pink dust. She drops the brush that rolls three seats down and somebody catches it with their right shoe, and relays it up the aisle into the safety of her bag.
I knew she was happy, as she carefully scribbles on a pair of lashes and lips in expert swoops. She fish-breathes her mouth and bites into a folded up piece of toilet roll and kisses it till it bleeds red in the shape of her broken lips, unkissed.
She pulls a mirror out of her bag that seems to carry everything she owns. A hamster, perhaps? A blue cheese chicken salad? Rent money in sweaty rolls and rubberbands?
The mirror's silver had flaked like crusty cuticles on a winter morning.
She winces as she stares into it. I couldn't tell why.
The train bobs this way and that to a stop, as she throws her mirror, her pride, and all yesterdays and before into her bag and walks out.
I catch her eyes as she goes. She looks the same as she had when she got on the train, twenty five minutes back.
Fartners in crime, as my Dad would call it. But undetected she fluffs her blush on, careful, a rush of fake blood to her face. Like an embarrassment. Caught in the act, stealing a cookie. Or condoms. Wisps of little pink dust. She drops the brush that rolls three seats down and somebody catches it with their right shoe, and relays it up the aisle into the safety of her bag.
I knew she was happy, as she carefully scribbles on a pair of lashes and lips in expert swoops. She fish-breathes her mouth and bites into a folded up piece of toilet roll and kisses it till it bleeds red in the shape of her broken lips, unkissed.
She pulls a mirror out of her bag that seems to carry everything she owns. A hamster, perhaps? A blue cheese chicken salad? Rent money in sweaty rolls and rubberbands?
The mirror's silver had flaked like crusty cuticles on a winter morning.
She winces as she stares into it. I couldn't tell why.
The train bobs this way and that to a stop, as she throws her mirror, her pride, and all yesterdays and before into her bag and walks out.
I catch her eyes as she goes. She looks the same as she had when she got on the train, twenty five minutes back.
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