podeamGold Dust
The harsh florescent flicker-flicker flickers harshly on harsh features. Unforgiving of the grace and wisdom of age, wrinkles and lines and sallow skin are thrown into sharp relief.
Lips looking more comfortable in a sneer than they would in a smile ask for cigarettes, Marlboro Lights. As the elderly cashier gestures weakly at the queue the woman had circumvented, she snaps.
You really think I’ll wait for all these people? You must be crazy! Just give me the cigarettes and I’ll pay for it at another counter, she seems to say in dialect. Brandishing a crisp fifty dollar bill in a manicured hand, she again asks for Marlboro Lights.
You can see that the bright red nail polish has worn way in certain areas, and chipped in others, and been touched up blotchily in a bright red nail polish that isn’t as bright red.
Eyes dripping with mascara, lashes clumped together in lumps that would be unseen in dark glooms, eyes that narrow with annoyance as they flick quickly from the offered pack to the elderly cashier.
MARLBORO LIGHTS.
The older woman apologetically looks for the correct brand. You can see gold dust dusted prettily in the waiting one’s hair. And it’s confusing.
Walking away, with a pack of cigarettes in one hand and crisp fifty dollar note in the other, walking to another cashier with a shorter line, you wonder. With pretty gold dust in prettily done hair contrasting so much with everything else.
It was a face that would have been pretty, if it hadn’t been so harsh. If it hadn’t been so angry. If it hadn’t been so sad.
–
I have my own gold dust. Except it’s more of a veneer, really. Curling up at the sides, though.
Scraping scraping scraping, tonight’s threatening to remove it all.