Comb

“I’m sorry I didn’t comb my hair.” She continued to criticize herself in the mirror.

“I should’ve gone through with that stupid diet. I look so fat.”

She walks over to the toilet and throws up her lunch from earlier. Megan then walks over to the drawer by her bed and begins to pull out all her make-up. She sits down on the floor at the base of her full length mirror hanging from her closet door and lays the make-up beside her. Her eyes wandered off her reflection and continued throughout the room.

“Everything is a mess. I’M a mess.”

Megan first applies the foundation to smooth out the crevices of her face. She puts a heavy layer of powder on the skin to create a mask. And some bronzer to create the illusion of higher cheek bones. The eyeliner and shadow combined with the mascara will open up her eyes and make them seem larger. She slips on a lacy neon green thong, a sleeveless royal blue dress and black her black leather boots. She decides to walk to the pharmacy to look for a diet supplement she can commit to.

As she walks down the aisle looking for a diet supplement, she begins to vomit, everywhere. The chunks of last night’s stew and bile spew all over the nearby products. The manager comes over and witnesses the scene. He is completely disgusted and begins to cough and gag. The odor causes him to sneeze on Megan but instead of snot and saliva, blood lands on her cheek and begins to clump up with the make-up on the surface. He apologizes and offers to clean it off for her in the back but she refuses and starts shaking from fear of him seeing her true identity.

“NO, no. I’m fine. I live right down the block. I’ll do it myself.”

“But what about the mess you made?” He shouted to her as she ran out the door.

It was beginning to rain. The rain was good. No one could see her cry in the rain. The wind, however, was terrible. She clenches her leather jacket close to her body. It is her favorite jacket, the tall collar made her feel safe.

She arrives home and checks her make-up in the mirror. Half of her face is saturated and the powder she had applied is in a goo-like form but on the opposite side, the man’s blood remained. Horrified, she dabs a paper towel with rubbing alcohol and furiously wipes the blood and make-up off of the other side. As she wipes she hears a knock on the door, snapping her out of the trance she fell into. Still flustered by the events from earlier, she uses the towel to quickly clean up the residue from the sink. Again, she hears the knock on her door, this time done with impatience.

“Please don’t let it be him. Not now.”

She slowly approached the door and looked into the peephole.

“Damn it. Damn it!” She muttered to herself as she slid down the door on to the ground. It was the super and her rent is three months overdue. She panics and tries to leave down the fire escape but slips and falls from the third story window and lands on the blunt pole of a chain-link fence, breaking her spine killing her. Her limp body lands on the sidewalk with her neon green thong exposed.

-

The sun shines through the window and warm red light fills the back of my eyelids. Shifting around in bed I try to make sense of the dream I just experienced as I reach for my glasses. I look around my room making sure it is in fact my room. The dream was extremely vivid but I can’t remember everything, only fragments: falling from a fire escape, a girl named Megan, a green thong, the taste of vomit, the smell of heavy makeup.

I get up and go into the bathroom and get ready to go open the pharmacy. I look at myself in the mirror. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t comb my hair.”