Inside an old Florence mansion lays, on the floor, what appears to be a wooden tray. Its design, old in essence, reveals that it was once an object of immense beauty while its surface exposes the effects of time. On the floor around the tray there are fragments of glass and wood while a portrait, once of a girl, is almost entirely burned to ash within the blazing fire place. A whimper is heard. Sitting on a stair case that curves up into the second floor above, is a girl wearing a dress that has been ripped by the force of her own hands. Tears stream from her eyes and her lips quiver and tighten as she stares at the object lying on the floor. Her body structure is long and thin, her hands are both soft and elegant, and her neck is often described by her admirers as that of a swan’s. Her face, however, is distorted and skeleton like. Wrinkles appear across its surface like waves from the winds of a raging hurricane and bags sit under her eyes like boulders. As she lifts her hands to her chest in agony images of her holding the object in the light of the fire place, only to see what is now her face, race through her mind and she curses the day she accepted the deceitful mirror. She remembered the old woman and how she knocked so softly on her door that it was almost unheard. “My, you are pretty”, she had said with a smile. “I have a gift for such a lovely woman like yourself. Will you accept?” The girl, at first, refused the mirror thinking it to be an old wooden plate of some sort. But the old tattered woman insisted and she obliged. But while slamming the door in her face, the woman had said something. “What was it she said?” It was a faint whisper, almost like a spell or a Curse. “But what was it?” The girl thought harder and harder. She could see the woman’s aged lips moving and the words she had spoken begin to flow back into her memory. “May your soul be as beautiful as your face.”
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Vanity
Inside an old Florence mansion lays, on the floor, what appears to be a wooden tray. Its design, old in essence, reveals that it was once an object of immense beauty while its surface exposes the effects of time. On the floor around the tray there are fragments of glass and wood while a portrait, once of a girl, is almost entirely burned to ash within the blazing fire place. A whimper is heard. Sitting on a stair case that curves up into the second floor above, is a girl wearing a dress that has been ripped by the force of her own hands. Tears stream from her eyes and her lips quiver and tighten as she stares at the object lying on the floor. Her body structure is long and thin, her hands are both soft and elegant, and her neck is often described by her admirers as that of a swan’s. Her face, however, is distorted and skeleton like. Wrinkles appear across its surface like waves from the winds of a raging hurricane and bags sit under her eyes like boulders. As she lifts her hands to her chest in agony images of her holding the object in the light of the fire place, only to see what is now her face, race through her mind and she curses the day she accepted the deceitful mirror. She remembered the old woman and how she knocked so softly on her door that it was almost unheard. “My, you are pretty”, she had said with a smile. “I have a gift for such a lovely woman like yourself. Will you accept?” The girl, at first, refused the mirror thinking it to be an old wooden plate of some sort. But the old tattered woman insisted and she obliged. But while slamming the door in her face, the woman had said something. “What was it she said?” It was a faint whisper, almost like a spell or a Curse. “But what was it?” The girl thought harder and harder. She could see the woman’s aged lips moving and the words she had spoken begin to flow back into her memory. “May your soul be as beautiful as your face.”
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One trait of the object that I think most significantly influenced my approach is that I am not entirely sure what it is. In the story, I decided to make it an entity that reveals the true essence of its beholder's soul but I decided to play on the fact that I am not really sure what the object is by making the fictional object be referred to as different objects (a tray, an object, a plate, a mirror).
ReplyDeleteI like what you're doing with ambiguity here. Still, there's a distinction between the character's uncertainty and the author's/reader's. The object can be described more clearly and consistently for the reader, even though the character may be less clear about what it is, and may speculate about its nature. In speculating, while the function may not be revealed, at least the external qualities of it can be made more precise. The mood is good, and it's an intriguing setting. The use of the passive voice weakens the narration, though. Again, consistency is key. Choose a point-of-view and stick with it.
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