Thursday, April 9, 2009

FICTION: Hunger

In case I am breaching internet writing prompt etiquette (and I hope I am not), I am going to disclaim this here and now: I only repost my own responses to prompts in my blog so that they can be collected in one central location. I won't hotlink images, or post responses that are not my own. I just like posting my stories on my blog because I like the idea that all of my writing can be found in one place, should anyone want to read my work.

If anyone managing these wonderful, inspirational prompt sites would rather I not repost my responses here, please let me know and I'll happily comply. :)

So, in response to Pictures, Poetry & Prose's challenge: She dreams of something more ...

Hunger

The girls enter the diner giggling, young and pretty in too-short skirts that reveal too-perfect thighs. They sit down at the booth and order a mountain of food: pancakes, hash brown, bacon, biscuits with sausage gravy. When it arrives, steaming hot and glistening with grease, the girls dig in with gusto. Their bony fingers pick at sausage links, glossy lips sucking soda pop through straws as thin as their arms.

She watches them from behind the counter. She remembers fifteen. Fifteen, when she was so hungry for life she could eat an entire turkey and not gain a pound. Ambition and innocence burns everything it touches, even the most saturated of fats.

She wants to tell these girls, I was like you once, but she knows they wouldn't believe her. They would never believe she was once so stunning, so thin, so desirable that she walked runways for Dior, wore haute couture gowns made of nothing but swan feathers and silk, was made up like a geisha and photographed for Vogue. They'd laugh if she told them she had rock star lovers at sixteen or a closet full of $500 shoes before she turned twenty. They would take one look at her sagging breasts, her support hose, her swollen ankles, and they would howl like banshees until their full stomachs ached.

And maybe she doesn't want to tell them. Maybe it's best that way. Let them believe they'll always be a size zero and turn heads every time they cross the street. Let them think they'll never be anything less than radiant. She doesn't want to go over to them and tell them, I used to be a princess, and look at me now. She doesn't want to break their hearts. Time will do that eventually. It always does.

Instead, she just watches them eat their breakfasts, these pretty teenaged girls, until their plates are as clean as their toothpaste-ad smiles. She watches, and she dreams of fifteen, when she was something more.

3 comments:

septembermom said...

Wonderful story for that prompt. I contributed to that one too, but I think you did a better job capturing the possible spirit of the picture! Very well written. I love the ambition and innocence line. Thanks for following my blog. I'm glad to follow yours too:)

Marc said...

I should think nobody would be upset if you post your writings on your blog in addition to their writing site. Heck, even if you do it instead of their writing site. Particularly if you mention where you got the idea from.

I reckon it's just free advertising for the prompt site. And who doesn't like free cinnamon buns?

Oh hey, it's late and I'm hungry. I should go eat my snack...

PersicaPit said...

septembermom - First of all, thank you for following me back! I thought your work was wonderful, and had to read more of your writing. For you to compliment my little drabble is high praise, indeed, and I thank you for it. That picture was a gem, really - there was so much going on with that woman; I just loved telling my version of her story. :)

Marc - Thank you for reassuring me that I wasn't breaking any known internet protocol with my reposting. This whole "flash fiction" thing is a little new to me, and I wanted to disclaim my good intentions and assure anyone that I meant no ill will. And yes, if I respond to a prompt, you'd better believe that prompt shall be pimped. ;)

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