And just this morning, as the dawn fish were being reeled into crates and nets, Lady woke from her thread less bed, and sat down in front of her mirror. She was a slave of her mirror, if you will; sacrificing fair children, freckle-less children, to her God, who was the keeper of her beauty. Yet this morning, her faith was broken when she noticed a child's nose still lay in the drain.
The freckle-less nose, dried and cold, still lay on the sacrificial altar.
Two men with those sailor hats reeled in that mornings catch, and laid the sacrifices on ice. Each bone and scale moved, in a dance of frustrated escape.
Lady sat before her mirror, filleting knife in hand, and instruction book on the counter, she pulled her hair back, stretching her face and skin as tight as one could.
Page 13, How to Remove Scales.
Page 13, How to Remove Blemished Skin. So three layers off her forehead, 5 off her nose, and 8 off her chin. "But keep the juices in, such fine juices for beautifying."
Page 23, Removing the Excess.
Page 23, How to Lose Weight.
Grabbing her stomach, Lady slowly took apart her skin, one layer, and one hair at a time. More by the hips and lower stomach. Pregnancy kills the image.
The sailor hated men, standing by the dock with their cutting boards standing around, gutted the fish, taking out each intestine and blood vessel out of the meat. Most spilled to the ground, running down the street gutter.
Page 24, Remember to keep the juices in, such fine juices for self esteem and beautifying.
But Lady forgot. She rang out her nightgown, down the drain, with the nose whirling around in that counterclockwise motion of Coriolis. Oh, how he would be proud.
Page 36, Selling the Dish.
Page 36, Selling Yourself.
And Lady stepped out, out onto the streets, unaware of her bleeding corpse, and the limp from her hips. She passed by a fountain with freckled children running through, and she scowled. She walked by a woman with a blemish on her cheek, and she scowled. She walked by a few fisherman, with those kind of sailor hats gutting fish and watching the juices swirling down the street gutter, and she scowled.
She walked into the nearest bar, dripping, trying to act all nice and flirty to the men sitting down by the cigarette machine. All they did was sit there and stare, and finally get up in a flurry that she wasn't able to understand.
Those two men, stood behind their cutting blocks, 2 dollars a pound, selling their fish to local chefs, or the occasional die hard self proclaimed cook.
Two days later, Lady woke up in a hospital, with white strips of threaded cloth all over her body, and there was a vase with a single rose inside. The head of it had fallen off, it had been their since she went in, it hadn't even opened yet. She picked it up, and peeled away the green. She then peeled away the pink pedals, taking away the natural beauty. A minute later, she was only left with a stem, and a few veins left. And she thought it was a mirror she was looking into.
The local chef was done breading the fish, and had cooked it with all the juices that were left inside. He remembered to keep the juices in, what fine juices for cooking a fish.
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