quarterly journal of poetic and visual art
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Mannequin Envy quarterly journal of poetic and visual art home - submissions - contact |
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Fall/Winter 2009-10
Jennifer VanBuren Mannequin Envy in memory of poet and artist Douglas Gamrath
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H.G. Dowdell Winter 2006 Burnt Offerings It all started last Thursday, when I saw my mother's face behind the plate glass window of a discount pharmacy downtown. The window's surface, inside and out, had been washed so slick and clean by some diligent window washer that even the traffic lights behind me looked as if they were about to attack at any moment. The same kind of squeaky cleanliness that showed each new pound and every other flaw I possessed, every time I walked by. Closing my eyes tightly on my mother's image peering out at me, I turned and walked in the opposite direction. Then this morning, just after stepping onto the bathroom scale, I saw her again, in my bathroom mirror. By then, of course, she had become pretty much a constant. Like Matt Lauer on a plasma TV screen at 7 A.M., or Dr. Phil and that new blue pill my own doctor had prescribed at around four in the afternoon. She was there again, grinning almost smugly as I wiped the shower steam from her face on the medicine cabinet door. And as the timer on the coffee pot kicked in and the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted down the hall, with the sleeve of my bathrobe I rubbed at the glass even harder, my knuckles almost bruising from the pressure and nearly causing the glass of the chrome-edged mirror to crack. "Why are you surprised to see me?" she kept asking, her voice now demanding. "Why? Especially when you know it's been coming for years." I stared back her. Eyes sunken in, the wrinkles and creases permanently etched at the corners of her mouth as they always were, and probably would be for a small eternity. At least, in my mind. "With you gone, I'm able to blot you out, that's all," I muttered. "I'm able to forget." "But are you really?" she asked. As the last residue of shower steam clung to the white tiles and the damp air around me, she became even clearer. And needless to say, I hated it when she seemed to know things I wouldn't dare admit. She'd tighten her jaw, purse her lips, and look oh so…superior. I stood there for a moment to study my own lips; colorless, dry, and slackened at the corners. My mother's lips. And after brushing my hair in a way I was sure would hide the most recent strands of gray at my temples, I applied my lip gloss—to disguise the truth. Also, making up in my mind that before leaving for work, I'd routinely burn my toast, sending the acrid smell of burnt bread spilling into a spotless and sterile 1970s kitchen. Then sitting down at the kitchen table to spread an extra gob of butter onto the blackened mess, I'd think vividly about slamming doors, running with scissors, and talking with my mouth full as I babbled idle threats of getting impregnated by a dark-skinned illegal alien and happily leaving the country for parts unknown. Once again, hoping against hope, that by late that evening I'd return from wherever my soul had been buried along side her—and my mom would finally be gone, forever. 2005 H.G. Dowdell
Bio: H.G. Dowdell is a former journalist and political speechwriter. Her articles have been featured in Essence and Self Magazines, the NY Amsterdam News, NY Newsday, and the City Sun News. Her flash fiction has been featured in Sister 2 Sister and Honey Magazines, and her short stories can also be found online at Hackwriters, The Copperfield Review, The Sidewalk's End, Skive Magazine, and are forthcoming at Ken* Again and Penwomanship . She's presently busy at work on her second novel. email: helendowdell@earthlink.net.
Jason Nunes "Leaving Home" |
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