Patricia

She wrapped Anne's hair around a curling iron as they admired Grace Kelly together. She filled the bowl with corn flakes and half & half. The bowl was turquoise. Anne ate.

As Anne ate, Patricia undid the clasp of a little gold pouch and took out her cigarettes. Her smoke filled the breakfast room, curling around her ears and eyes. She was like a starlet in a forgotten kitchen, all poise and fashion with a scarf 'round her head like a Turk.

She always chewed cinnamon gum when she wasn't smoking. Little squares with liquid filling. She gave Anne a piece as they walked to the mailbox. There was the usual waste of false letters, nothing important.

Later, when things had decayed, they held hands in a church. A happy wedding! Patricia had grown blind and couldn't see Anne. Anne could not believe how small Patricia was.

A speck fading away to nothingness.

They gathered under a garish green tent with the few who were left. To watch AstroTurf being pulled back to reveal... that small white box. A box that could contain a cake or an unwanted Christmas gift. Not ashes and a life. Not her.

And the others clutched Anne's hands with damp, old hands. Faces she would never recognize, saying her name. Those lipsticked lips smacking as the color crept into the wrinkles. And those white, translucent hairs curled to resemble yearbook photos of the past.

She felt sick, but she smiled.

Anne too was blind and her eyes hurt. Her head hurt her head hurt and she couldn't not think! Dissolve into the pinprick. Or like the linger of an old television being switched off.

They were all gone, these images of the past. The gossamer sleeve wafting around Emily's shoulder as Fitzgerald wrote masterpieces about Zelda.

Now there was only this. This nothing at all.

Patricia was tight and burgundy lipped. Anne had her feet. Impossible, tiny feet that surely could not balance a real person. Only Anne could slide her feet into Patricia's shoes.

Soon Anne's hair curled of its own volition. And Grace Kelly became a princess.

Eaten

Her naked eyelashes were the color of her grandmother's mink. They became black when she wet them with tears. The tears dried on her face and then her tight skin cracked when she moved her mouth. Parted her lips.

The gap between her front teeth was askance from the tubercle of her upper lip. An odd thing.

She missed him already and couldn't breathe, although she could hear him breathing in the other room. She couldn't breathe and her little organs were shutting down inside her little body. She could feel them, all achy and shuddering. And her mind closing in on itself until it was just a pinprick.

And no one would find her there, not him, and she would be eaten by cats. Cats who would start with the pads of her fingertips and toes. Perhaps they had begun to naw already.

Tiny shoes in dusty boxes. Old hands with pink fingernails caressing her face. "You should brush your hair one-hundred strokes every night," Emily said.

She breaks down and uncorks the bottle. Naw naw naw.

Emily's refrigerator didn't work, so she used it for storage. Cereal boxes, cookie tins. Her icebox required defrosting. She sat very regally on what appeared to be an uncomfortable chair (ankles crossed) and drew out Southern words languid as the afternoon. Miniature hands clasped loosely and delicately.

And then dead and eaten. Clasping and unclasping (or whatever it is to "wring" one's hands) and biting her lips until they bled.

In the light, her naked lashes shown all auburn and chestnut and tapered golden tips. They were all she had.