Left to themselves, they grew like Topsy; that was the reason she had plucked. ‘A neat arch,’ the glossies used to say, ‘frames and opens the eye’. Now her eyes had been opened alright. She was heartily sick of looking. No use moping, though. You had to see the joke.
Until she drew them in, her whole face was less presence than absence. People like to think like that—that, really, there was no one at home. She supposed it felt that more comfortable that way—and she tried not to blame them. On the other hand, this was her face and she needed to be seen.
When you are old, the world thinks you don’t care. Or it finds your caring foolish. Whoever came, she wanted them to see the ghost of the woman who had been.
Abi Wyatt lives in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. Formerly a teacher of English, she is now a full-time writer. Abi writes mainly poetry and short fiction. She has been published most recently in Word Salad, First Edition, One Million Stories. A Long Story Short and Poetry Cornwall. Contact via abigailwyatt.blogspot.com.