“Drop your grotesqueries in the bucket!” the man in the white jumpsuit bellows. With trembling hands, we tear off misshapen ears, bulbous noses, some of us gouge out our beady eyes, peel back our thin lips, rip out coarse hair, extract yellowed teeth. We now have faces like Swiss cheese, scalps like molting Blue Jays, we look as if made of Play-Doh, clowns before makeup, our hands shiny with gore and the air turns sickly sweet, our chests swelling to fill our lungs with the benumbing perfume. We fall to the ground, tripping over our comatose brethren until we unite in a deep chemical slumber.
When our closed eyes register shining light, like the brightest of suns, when it warms our skin, kisses our rosy cheeks, we groggily breathe in the crisp air with our aquiline noses, run our tentative fingers through soft wavy hair, our cochlea, protected by round well-proportioned ears, register contented moans; we see each other through almond shaped eyes, we smile with full lips, our white teeth gleam. We cry together, we wail in unison, we now know what it is like to be beautiful; we, too, can say that we are perfect.
Rebecca Tiger teaches sociology at Middlebury College and in jails in Vermont and lives part-time in New York City. She writes on the long train ride to and from work. You can find her at published stories at rebeccatigerwriter.com.
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