The Toilette Scene

Too dreary. Too frumpy. Too garish. Too nice. The girl sifted through her clothing, wildly, like a Yahoo searching for diamonds. Fur, white lace, various types of check, beige cashmere and azure silk flashed through the smoky air. She sat down heavily on the vast four-poster bed with an irritable sigh and lit up her fifth cigarette of the evening. The deep inhalation and slowly rising smoke calmed her. What part did she wish to play tonight? Her audience would have a jumble of predilections and striving to adhere to them all was proving somewhat stressful. She stubbed out her cigarette and got up to look in the gold-framed mirror.

“Ugh, how ghastly!” she said into the mirror with an angry grimace.

“You know what you need, Madam?” replied the mirror, “A mask! That grimace shan’t disfigure your dull visage for long. Look here: we have powders of blue, cherry-blossom and gold, paints of crimson, coal black and ivory white, and mascaras, sprays and scents enough to please an Eastern princess.”

 

And so she began the ritual of adorning her face. And with each layer of paint, a layer of her soul seemed to fall away. She became less wraith-like by the minute, as her spirit weakened, her flesh became more prominent, more important; it was her status, her key and everything she now lived for. She looked at this new person and was pleased and the mirror cried, “Oh, My Dear! All shall love you and their eyes will shine with green envy!”

 

Now that she could bear to look upon herself without despairing, she proceeded to bedeck herself in various different garments and jewels. She wanted an attire that was unusual yet familiar, to make people feel nostalgic for something they did not quite know. She wished to invade her audience’s collective psyche like a dream.

 

From her bedroom - so like an alchemist’s chamber full of colours, potions and artifice - she emerged transformed after hours of meticulous attention to her appearance. And just before she closed the dark, oak door she heard the mirror murmur excitedly: “Bewitching!”