The Turning Point - A Short Story

Photo by Soroush Karimi on Unsplash

In the twilight, her skin shines like honey. Veins run like connected tributaries beneath her skin. She holds the colour of the bark of a tree, dry like a parched field of land. She has flaky abrasions anyone could not help but notice, causing irritable itchiness, redness, and then breaks out into a bump on her honeydew skin with her almost brown eyes.

She believes she has a disagreeable pigment and skin, looking at all the models and advertisements on all the billboards around her city, making her insecure and lower self-esteem. As she approaches with a polite gaze to people surrounding her, she reads not quite right, off the balance, awkward stares, and wants to hide by the hem of her cotton dress and never be visible to the world.

She tries all the remedies to get rid of the pimples and the scars they leave behind as they fade away, with different creams, lotions, fruit peels, flour, everything she could get her hands on, which promised to give clearer skin off the blemishes. Finally, makeup, her pet peeve, was what she turned towards since nothing seemed to work. She was exhausted trying. She started to spend hours in front of the mirror to apply the desired make up, which helped her look her best, in her eyes.

When she looks in the mirror she sees the new confident, appealing and attractive person, boosting up her confidence. When other people look at her all they see is her, her reflection. But that’s because they don’t see her true self, as she hides it from the world, under layers of concealer and creams, afraid of what they would think of her. She did this painful exercise, for years, and started resenting.

One day, something changed. She woke up feeling different. She looked at herself in the mirror, she had sensed self-respect knocking at her door, a long time coming her way. Perhaps she was waiting for the world to grant it to her, to be respected for who she is, so she could mirror it back.

A realization struck her like a lightning, the respect she gained from others is settled at the superficial level, at the cost of coping with society, where she was sending across the message to a great many people — I am just flesh and bones instead of a person with a mind, emotions, and soul to meet.

For without full trust, how can we accept the love of others, when we fail to love ourselves?

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published in The Weekly Knob