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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Beautiful (11/07/05)
Squandering Last Hope


Black gaps had formed where teeth had fallen out, etched scars from the burdens of having two (proverbial) left feet, spirailing wirey hair sprouting in tufts and replacing the handfuls clumping the bathroom sink, welts where her herpes had flared up in a continuing painful cycle.

To be beautiful... and have everything that a modern day concubine would never have.

Of course it was generous to use the preferable word "concubine" as she would have only dreamed to belong to someone.
Instead she was declared a "ho". Belonging to the world. Always with an "open for inspection" sign over her forhead.

Love. Respect.

A laughable notion, although in all, seemingly basic human requirements.

Yet in the modern world, sex was a basic human requirement.
At least for men.
Appropriated as the reason why priests have found they can't help themselves around young boys.

If sex was a need, she'd had her fill a hundred times over, somehow less satisfied every time.

A groping, thirsting, blind desire...

Animals.

Heaving, perspiring, pulsating...

Ugliness where there should be beauty.

Gagging, staining, bawling...

With lip-stick smears, heavy eyes and rough bruises reflecting in the dank basin; she gurgled on the tiles of the bathroom, huddled over the toilet bowl, her soul torn into millions of tiny fragments and her spirit parched and stale. Blaming everyone but herself.

Her pitiable life story swum around in empty cavities of her internal septic tank, weaving throughout the befouled excretment of her memory banks. A virus, a parasite eating away at every last disgusting morsel of her mind.

Destitute and squalid; she stank of urine, burbon and other various toxins and poisons which were clogging up her arteries, while sitting in a tepid pool of her own filth.

She never asked for money as an adequate exchange for sex, as the feeling of desire in itself was enough repayment.

Being wanted was almost as good as being beautiful.

Even though, it had never occured to her that to them, she was nothing more than a vacant opening.
Tenants coming in to explore for only minutes at a time, leaving their mark and then moving on again - as if they were typifying the common behavior of a variety of birds and mammals using a woodpeckers home for as long as it suited them, then moving on to greener pastures or warmer weather.

Nevertheless, it was nice to feel desired.

A demented kind of beauty.

Her life story stopped and then rewound. The only time she could remember hearing those words, directed at her.

"The Lord who searches the people's hearts can see your beauty."

It was a night of scornful hope, stumbling into a late night church service and being unwillingly accepted into welcoming arms.

Jesus, you can make me beautiful.

Silence.

I believe in you Jesus...

Surely this day, you will be with me in paradise.

I am restored by You. She clung to that last thought like a rodent holding a scrap of discarded chicken meat for dear life.

In heaven I will be beautiful in Christ.

And then she breathed her last, giving up her soul to perhaps the only living One who could ever find her beautiful.
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This article has been read 1431 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Jeffrey Snell
11/15/05
Your vivid illustrations of her thoughts and self-disgust are gut-wrenchingly accurate, but at times overpowering to the story. Nice effort.
dub W
11/19/05
The graphic illustrations may be a bit overdone, but the hard line conclusion makes it worth while. Find an editor to clean up some of the basic writing issues and you have a good one.
Val Clark
11/20/05
BB this is not a nice story! Oh, you knew that. But it is gripping with some powerfully descriptive lines (Her pitiable life story swum around in empty cavities of her internal septic tank, weaving throughout the befouled excretment of her memory banks.)Mmm, spelling of excrement... And it ends on a truly beautiful note - thanks for that! Some tough thinking went into this. Well done. Yeggy
Anita Neuman
11/20/05
This is yucky and horrible - but that's what you were going for. You've put into words something that most of us will never experience, and you made it real. Good job.
Karen Ward
11/22/05
Well I liked it. Her self loathing and desperate circumstances come through vividly, and there is hope at the end. Some of your descriptions are excellent. Well done BB.
Suzanne R
11/23/05
Ugh ... and well done ... all at once. This was so ugly and yet the whole point is that to God she is not only accepted but beautiful. Wow. Well done.