This week's picture prompt is a photo, as best I can confirm it, of a Bergdorf Goodman Window display. @maiasylba on Pinterest pinned it, saying she saw it in the window, and where there are many photos of Bergdorf Goodman windows uploaded on her Pinterest board. She is the founder of Musetouch Visual Arts Magazine. It definitely looks like a window display.
I struggled a little with this one. Sometimes I am not sure what story I want to write, but then deadlines approach and I have to go with what comes out the fastest.
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How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.
There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.
Mannequin
Larissa stood in front of the mirror trying
on different pieces of jewellery; she didn’t like any of them. Then she tried
to pick out a dress for the evening too – maybe try and match it to the
jewellery, but she couldn’t decide on it.
All that went round her head is what others would think – not what she thought, or she liked, but what they might like. She hated living like this, but it’s how life had evolved since she’d become famous. It wasn’t about what she said, or what she did, only about what she wore and who had made what she wore – unless she did something outrageous or said something controversial, which she did from time to time just to mix it up. She laughed at the storm it created, and even at the fallout, but at the end of the day it was all pointless.
They’d painted her as some sort of angel and put her on a pedestal but it only made her feel isolated and unreachable. And even though they claimed she had sought out this lifestyle, the truth was all she had sought to do was express her art. They treated her like royalty, but it was only a matter of time before they cut off her head.
Larissa was acutely aware of the tightrope actors like herself walked. It was all about what was fashionable and hip now, and staying in that place. The second she did or said something wrong, she would tumble and fall, crashing to the ground and become a has-been. A part of her longed for that moment, because then it would all be over and she could end the charade – it was really what fuelled her outrageous moments. But another part of her was terrified because nothing was ever as you imagined and she didn’t want to be exiled from a world she had grown to love.
So here she was trying to dress herself in something provocative yet enchanting that would wow the people, when really all she felt like was a mannequin in shop window on display for people to gawk at and critique.
She found herself a nice little cream number, with a smattering of beads and sequins and some outrageous costume jewellery which would sparkle nicely for the cameras. She’d make up the names of the designers as she often did, just to baffle them all, and get them googling it. They wouldn’t dare say she had made it up for fear of insulting a famed name they didn’t know about. It would be a laugh.
And she’d get through the photo shoot on the way into the event by imagining all of the press as zombies clamouring for her brain. That would keep a smile on her face.
She took one last check in the mirror before she left for the event and smiled at herself. Did she do it for her or did she do it for them? She didn’t know, but either way, it kept both sides fed and happy.
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