Tuesday 26 June 2012

57: Scene of the Crime


Martha looked at her reflection, hardly recognizing the old woman who looked back.  The eyes were hers, but they were hooded, crumpled at the corners and had a weariness she resented.  All those potions and pots of miracle cream hadn't worked, not as she'd hoped anyway.  Most people said she looked fabulous for 56 years but not in her own eyes.

Her cheeks were still smooth and barely drawn down by gravity at all.  Her neck was slim, showing no sign of an extra chin.  Martha hated the phrase ‘double chin’ and had been determined never to have one.  The skin was a little sun-worn, particularly closer to her chest.  She rued not discovered SPF-infused moisturizer years sooner.

Martha raised her hands to her face, placing one near each eye.  Her hands showed her age more than her face, creped and spotted.   She hated them, hid them from view whenever she could.  Now she pulled at the skin around her eyes, lifting it outwards, tightening the wrinkles and altering the shape of her eyelids.

Some of her friends were proud of their lines and lumps, attributing them to a life well lived and charting the progress they had made in raising a family.  Tomorrow Martha would book into a clinic in an anonymous London street and submit to the knife that would remove proof of what she had lived through, leaving hardly any evidence at all.

Inspired by “Plans to remove ‘Granny Flat’ council tax”


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