Work Text:
We are perfect for each other, yet we could not be more different. You have a habit of anxiously twirling your mousy hair, shrinking into yourself like an armadillo. Your face is a wreck of asymmetry, the colour of mouldy cheese. But you cover this with a heavy layer of foundation, and I have never seen the real length of your lashes or the real shape of your lips. You have a habit of taking late shifts to make room for your day job – not even enough to cover rent. Considering this, all sorts of things could happen. You could disappear. You’d be replaced by another bagging machine by your next shift, without the added expense of tears.
Yet, it is for that exact reason that you are desirable to me. People like you aren’t missed.
I’ve been watching you for some time now. No, I don’t mean one pathetic hour. No, I’m talking about months. Streetlights blink disconcertingly through the glass, the occasional stream of headlights washing over the monotonous grocery aisles. I’m in the frozen goods section, faced with my own aesthetic reflection.
You’re behind your little checkout counter – number five – packing orders for your little customers, that plain little smile on your baby-face that signified you were annoyed, and wanting to get home to re-watch the newest episode of Spy Girl on Nickelodeon channel. (I have not bothered to inquire about your personal life beyond this.)
I feel a little thrill as I push my cart toward you now, for the first time. I checked the news beforehand: I always check the news before approaching objects of interest. It wouldn’t do to have a nameless reporter define my character – worse, misrepresent it – before the girls even got to know me, first.
Oh, but you’re special. I don’t remember your name, exactly, but I certainly haven’t been on the news for a long time, and you are the one who will bring me back.
I don’t need to pretend to smile as I approach you with my sparse items. The exchange needs to be rapid-fire: it wouldn’t do to give you time to think rationally.
You mumble automatically, how are you?
I say, good thanks. I’m new to town. Can you recommend any sights? Restaurants? I make sure to flash you a grin, letting my salt-and-pepper hair fall over my eyes.
Your eyes spark up. I’ve established myself as a different sort of customer.
You say, the fireworks. And the carousel got fixed recently.
I say, tonight’s fourth of July. Do you want to watch the fireworks together?
You freeze up. You think I’m mocking you. You grab my hair pomade.
You say, I can’t take leave.
I say, it’s Independence Day.
I adjust my glasses in a nervous manner, looking from side to side. It’s strange that people strive to appear perfect, when it is insecurities and imperfections that provide the basis for human connection.
You search my gaze, digging for some hidden agenda. You find none, faux eyelashes fluttering, yellowed teeth worrying your painted lip. Just below it is a scar on your neck. I believe it is by your own hand.
You say, yeah, okay. Why not.
So that’s how we end up sitting on the bed of my pickup truck, at the edge of a cliff, watching the fireworks. They explode in the sky like popping candy; it’s like we’re being swallowed whole by the night. A kaleidoscope of lights scintillates off your plain eyeballs, your strands of mousy hair sticking out from under your hood. I can’t see you quite clearly. But I recognise the insecure hunch in your body posture.
What I’ve found is that a person unearths their truest self in the face of danger. Rich, poor, beautiful, ugly– what they’re really like, deep inside, comes out as soon as you pull the knife. And often, it’s quite the same. A screeching animal. Death is not deceived by the exterior, and makes equals of all of you.
You’re transfixed by the brilliant display. The flashing, fading lights make it hard for me to see you. I inch closer, my hand spidering up the ridges of your spine, knife tucked in my sleeve.
You say suddenly, I know you.
My presence must have lingered on the internet. I play along, yeah? from where?
You say, the news. I saw you on TV.
I paused. That can’t be right. The last time I was on the news was twenty years ago. I had been twenty-five. You can’t be more than twenty-two.
I say uncertainly, how?
Suddenly you jerk back from my hovering hand. I have made a mistake. I snatch at your skinny throat the same moment you grab my hand. You have an iron-grip. Then you grab at the scar on your neck and pull it over your head, and your carefully applied makeup comes with it; your ugly twenty-two-year-old, blotchy-faced disguise comes off like the skin of a kiwi. Underneath is a very beautiful woman. I am certain I have seen her before, a model in advertisements and magazines. But then again she could be any of them, from Louis Vuitton to Chanel.
I say, why?
She says, because you’re good-looking. My current skin is aging, and she has cellulite. It is time to shed.
Something glints in her hand and before I know it I have been stabbed. She had stolen my knife somehow. I fall to the ground, the echoes of fireworks ringing in my ears.
I’m not dead yet. I hear a sort of squelch and I think she has relieved me of my skin. I hear the sound of stripping and rustling, and then the dark shape of a head appears above me. A distant explosion of colours sets it alight. I’m staring at my own face, salt-and-pepper hair waving in the breeze, friendly blue eyes glinting, charm carved into his smile.
Much good it has done me.