Haifa I

Sold through ARTSHARKS ARTHouse

She did not look up when I stepped into the room. She did not hear me.

I was about to clear my throat, to make some sort of noise to announce my presence, as is the customary practice in polite society—but I didn’t. I don’t know why, but I didn’t. Perhaps it was a feel that kept me back. Perhaps a quiet instinct that restrained me.

I could see her face reflected in the mirror, but she couldn’t see me, for the mirror was angled and the doorway where I stood was dark. Standing there, leaning my hot cheek against the cool dark wood of the doorframe, I watched her primp before her vanity mirror, carefully dabbing at her nose, her lips, her eyelashes, applying a beauty mark on her chin and roseblossoms of rouge on her cheeks. And then, when she was done, she gazed at herself for a long weary moment, the eyes glowing brightly behind the made-up mask of her face.

Her lips moved as she started to cry; she was probably cursing herself for her timing, now when the mask was perfectly in place and she was ready. But sorrow knows no boundaries, and there is no such thing as time or logic to restrain the rawness of the soul. The tears fell mercilessly, dragging down the mask, drooping the blackness of the eyes, softening the redness of the mouth.

Stuck in place by my fascination, my confusion, and my shock, I watched the mask slip off altogether, peeled away by nature’s liquid fingers, revealing a face as it should be—older, wrinkled, emotional, real. She couldn’t fight nature. She buried the reality in her hands and wept.
“Angreek87″