Story Time

Today's procrastination, involved a lot of lazing around, watching TV and writing this here story. 

I hope you like it, and would love to hear some feedback in the comments!

Plastered Plastic

A bead of sweat accumulated among her Barbie Blonde fringe and slowly edged its way down her face, trickling past her mascara covered eyes and percolating through her blusher painted cheeks. However hard it tried, it could not penetrate the thick layer upon layer of various assortments of powders, creams and glitters that had been thrown over her face in a thick glop. Her natural chestnut bob had been distorted into a blonde dip – dyed frenzy of curls that fell upon her shoulders with a sense of importance and looked perfect - Not an attractive sort of perfect though, a forced one.

She had slipped into a tight dress, the colour of an artificial sweet of some sort, and had put on a pair of 5 inch wedges that were barely hanging onto her petite feet, by a thin leather strap that had been chucked over the top. The dress was literally clinging to her olive skin, much like how the perfume that had been poured over her, was still clinging to the room. She hated every part of this big ‘Dress Up’ game, the pageantry, the bogus atmosphere, the type of contestants, the greyhounds of photographers ready to pounce on the tiniest of mistakes and the snooty air that the judges radiated but the thing she hated most, was the shear fact that she couldn’t do one thing about it.

            ‘Tanya, what do you think you are doing?’ shrieked Madame Croft, her manager, with the intense fury that you only see in ravage animals waiting to tear their prey apart, limb by limb. ‘Sit up!’ she cackled again sounding a lot like a manipulative witch staring into a cauldron of horrors. “We must work on that absolute lethargic posture of yours!” She reminded Tanya of some sort of Doctor Seuss character with her curled upper lip and beady eyes. She had an arrogant aura, the impression of importance just glared through her.

Madame Croft perused her surroundings, checked that no one was watching, and thrust her gnarly fingers across Tanya’s wrist (the only limb on her body that wasn’t inhabited by some form of chemical wrapped up with a pretty pink bow) and emphatically dragged her over. In doing this, Tanya fell over her own wedges and tumbled hard onto the unforgiving tile floor that lay beneath her, emphasizing her pain with a deafening thud. “Well look what you have gone and done now, you stupid little girl” she yelled as she yanked Tanya off of the tiles and shrieked more about how she’s now ruined her lipstick.

After pinching her cheeks together and applying yet more makeup to ‘fix’ her face, she started to back out of the room. Tanya inhaled sharply every step Madame Croft took, until, without warning she spun around and eyeballed her, as if she was staring deep into her soul. In a malicious tone she growled “You better win this Tanya, darling, or else it’s my neck on the line and I won’t be happy. Understand?”, and with that she was gone, thankfully taking her arrogant ego with her as she strutted off.

The girls all lined up in rows, eight by three, and had to stand on the exact point they had been given, as if not to get too close to the ‘perfect’ bubble that surrounded the other contestants. They were so perfectly ordered, as though a firing squad were lined up in front of them, ready to shoot if they so much as smiled or moved, and this stuck fear into Tanya’s core. She felt so used, like someone else’s artwork on display, and she didn’t enjoy it.

A gust of cold air flew through the large, double – bay window sending an eerie, and chilling shiver down Tanya’s spine. Girl after girl was strutting up the catwalk, smiling, posing, waving, laughing, doing whatever it was that was needed to make you get noticed. Tanya felt like she had to do something, to prove that she was not just a piece in this game, that she wasn’t just an object to be moved around like a puppet. That she was a human being in herself. She started to scheme with the girl next to her and together they had formed a plan, one that would prove themselves to these sick people. When Tanya’s name got called, she seized her sidekick’s hand and together they walked up the catwalk. With no expression on their faces they reached the raised platform at the other end, they didn’t smile or pose and carried on walking.  They walked through the crowd, the benches at the back of the room and straight out of the Auditorium doors at the other end. It felt good. It felt like they had won.