Degradation

Degradation

This body was beautiful once. Taut, plump skin covering muscle and sinew, impossibly soft under roving fingertips. A testament to the unblemished canvas of human youth. But Alison Birch is no longer young, and she is no longer beautiful. 

She stares into the dressing room mirror. It’s a gaudy, offensive thing. Bright bulbs shine into her watery eyes, illuminating every imperfection. The deep crevices in her crow’s feet catch the light. She tilts her head, uses a finger to pull the skin back toward her temple. A momentary reprieve, a memory of what was. It droops forward when she lets go.

Your wrinkled, sagging flesh disgusts me, I say. She flinches. 

A knock at the door.

“Ten minutes, Ms. Birch.” Her assistant, the fresh-faced boy with wavy brown hair, touches his headset. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine, Kevin.” She meets his eye through the mirror’s reflection and offers him a smile. Her skin bunches, gathers in folds on each side of her mouth. 

Kevin flips a paper on his clipboard. “You have your speech?” 

She nods and lifts a handful of notecards in response. “All set.” She sucks a breath in through her nose, and huffs it out her mouth, shaking her head. “It feels like I’m being put out to pasture.” 

“Only you could make a Lifetime Achievement Award sound like a death sentence.” He grins at her, flashing bright white teeth. “People want to celebrate you. You’re an icon. You’re Alison Birch.”

They pity you, I say. Her jaw clenches, and I watch the thought take root, weaving its way into the folds of her psyche.

“You’re sweet. Thank you, Kevin.” Her voice is quiet. He’s paid to be kind. He’s paid to lie.

For forty years I’ve lived as a passenger in Alison’s body. Beauty, I have learned, is this planet’s most precious commodity. She was nineteen when I chose her as my host, a sparkling ingenue—magnetic, inescapable. Oh, how these life forms would fawn over her. It was a heady type of power, walking into a room and commanding every eye. They called her a muse, a goddess. They trained cameras on her, plastered her face on pages of glossy magazines, showered her with lavish gifts. Now they look through her, as if she doesn’t exist at all.

I’ve suffered through decades watching her debase herself, desperate to reclaim what the years have taken. Sucking fat from her body with plastic tubes, injecting poison in her mouth to perfect a pout. Slicing herself open and stitching herself back together, painting her face with creams and powders to hide the ugliness underneath. Starving herself until knotty cramps ravaged her stomach. Nothing worked. Without her beauty, she is worthless. A brittle shell filled with unbearable nothingness. 

Her phone chimes. A text from her ex-husband.

Sorry I can’t be there. Good luck tonight. She taps the screen, leaving a small pink heart on the message.

He’s not sorry, I say. He’s fucking a girl half your age, and glad it isn’t you.

Her eye twitches. I know she hears me, though she doesn’t know what I am. Her doctor gave me a name: intrusive thoughts. I detest the reductiveness of the accusation, the ludicrous idea I am something she could control.

Alison has become a loathsome prison. I want nothing more than to leave the cruel callousness of this world, but I am tethered–-bound to this woman until her body expires. Surely she can’t last much longer. I remind her how little she has to live for, playing the words of others like a macabre melody.

Her agent: Nobody’s career lasts forever. Find some time to relax, you’ve earned it. Take up a hobby! Macrame is big right now.

Her daughter: You’re a selfish bitch. The only person you care about is yourself. Don’t call me again. 

Her plastic surgeon: There’s only so much I can do. Your expectations are unrealistic. 

Her accountant: The money’s gone, Alison. You’re gonna have to sell the house.

The barista from the coffee shop: Can I have your autograph? My grandma used to love you.

She squeezes her eyes shut, forces the meaty parts of her palms into the hollows of her brow bone. The bottle of pills sits on the edge of the vanity. She twists the top and taps the orange plastic until one, then two fall into her palm. She swallows them dry. They inch their way down her throat, bitter and chalky.

She leans forward and lines her mouth with brick red pencil, covers it with sticky gloss. The color is too harsh, highlighting the sallowness of her skin. The effort infuriates me, another useless attempt to fix what’s broken, paint over the cracks in the facade.

You’re pathetic, I say. 

She reaches for a box of tissues and wipes the color away, exposing the sickly paleness of lips that used to be pink. Desperation courses through her, filling the emptiness like thick sludge, making her limbs heavy. 

End this misery, I say. 

Her eyes flick to the pill bottle. She grabs it, dumping the remainder in her hand. There are fifteen, twenty pills. More than enough.

Knock-knock-knock. 

Kevin opens the door without waiting for an answer. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

Her fist closes tight around the little blue ovals. I feel the imprint of them against her palm. Anticipation sizzles through my consciousness. I’m so close to freedom I would weep, if I could. 

“I’m ready,” she says. Kevin gives her a thumbs up and scurries away. 

She stands and pours a glass of water from a crystal pitcher. The sadness etched in the lines of her face is gone—shifted to something else, something I don’t recognize. Relief. Peace. 

“I’m ready,” she says to the mirror. To herself. To me.

Maybe tonight she’ll finally break. 

Maybe tonight I’m going home.