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Oh, but she missed it. She missed it so hard. To be able to be so... so frivolous, so focused on her own pleasure and her appearance, on liking what she saw in the mirrors. Her mirrors hadn't been broken then. Her hair. It hung from her scalp like a dead thing. It stank like an animal. It somehow managed to be thick with grease and dry as straw at the same time, and once upon a time that would have been because of a week camping with no shampoo and it would have been a blissful, pampering few hours to fix. A hair mask, combed through the mess, the creamy thick flowery stuff cooling a sore scalp. Shampoo, maybe even twice, to strip it all out. Conditioner, to bring back the shine. And then her hair would have been back to its shimmering nutty waves and her husband would -
No. Think of something else.
Her skin. Think of her skin. Think about how it used to be washed and scrubbed and moisturised til it was smooth and soft as the finest satin, how it practically glowed. How the first fine lines had started showing so she used anti-aging cream that smelled wholesome and delicious and made all kinds of promises. 'He'll love you as much as when you were a girl!’ well, he loved her more, no matter the fine lines, or the two or three grey strands...
And stop. Stop this. Think of baths. Think of hours in scented water with a good book. Think of that. It had been three days since she had last washed. For that she had to find a building with a door that still locked because she had no wish to be naked in this place. Filled a rusting bucket with cold, dirty water, and scrubbed herself as hard as she could, knowing it didn't make her cleaner, or fresher in any way, but she was so tired of feeling so dirty -
She should cut her hair. She should shave it down to the scalp. It'd be easier, cleaner. She should do a lot of things. She should move from this agonised huddle. She should stop thinking about what she's missing, or if she must think of that think of easier things. Think of baths and books and chocolate and herbal teas and good wine and a clean body and soft hair and a world that doesn’t always stink of dust and fire and death and think of how she used to paint her nails in quirky little colours that made the neighbours gossip and think of clean sheets and carpet and baths that don't look like a corpse rotted into them over decades and whatever you do…
Don't think of them.
But it's hard.
Because every single thing is a reminder.
#
She found a lipstick in a ruined drugstore. The label was faded out, and over the years the lipstick itself had melted and solidified so often it was now a streaky, almost-colourless pool of goo.
She still stuck her little finger into the colour and smeared it across her lips as best she could. Rubbed it in. Her hands were shaking. She'd not eaten or slept well recently. She found a sliver of mirror and stared at her filthy face for a long while. She touched the cuts, bruises, blemishes, like they were on someone else. Rubbed the colour that had missed her lips and stained her skin. In the thin light it looked a dull orange and made her look sicker than ever.
Her hand tightened on the mirror shard until it her skin split and blood came. She flung the mirror away from her and wailed something wordless to the sky.
#
She used to go running. She was glad for that now, but the 5k runs her curvy little self had done were not preparation for this, for these hours and days of walking, punctuated by desperate panicked fleeing. She'd seen no-one. Not one person. She might be walking in circles. She might already be dead. Did she even care?
'No,' she told herself through cracked lips. 'I don't care'. If she died, maybe there would be a bath. If she died, maybe there'd be a man, smiling, with a baby in his arms.
She sat down with a heavy thump. Her ass had new angles she'd never known possible before. Her filthy hair hung in elflocks in front of her eyes. She didn't care. She was done.
'Just sit and die,' she said, smiling for the first time in a while. 'No-one will miss me. No-one left to miss me'.
Despite waiting for some time in the vast silence of the wasteland, her heart refused to stop beating. She laughed, but there was no humour in it. Up on her feet again, she kept walking.
#
Not circles. Not circles after all. A spiral. Trying to avoid... her home... but being drawn there anyway, step by step. She left it frightened, but plump and glossy and healthy, believing she was doing right. What mother with the choice wouldn't? What wife? She came back to it half starved, dirty, looking like a mangy animal.
Back to the street. She had sores around her mouth that itched, one of her eyes was crusted, her hair was now crawling with parasites. She was home.
For one second she expected it to be as it was. The gardens neat as pins, green and fresh. Cars shining in the sun. The neighbour’s kids playing...
Of course it wasn't. But it was a betrayal that it wasn't. It hit her in the chest. She was almost impressed. She thought she'd stopped feeling anything already.
The gardens were grey and brown and dusty. The houses had taken on the sad and threatening air of any abandoned home. They wanted you, but they would kill you to keep you.
She felt unbalanced. She was unbalanced. Houses that would kill.
She couldn't do it. Couldn't walk into that house. Full of little touches, kisses, arguments. Ghosts on ghosts on ghosts. No.
Hungry and shaky as she was she turned on her heel and walked away.
#
She found herself standing in a ruin of... something. None of the buildings made sense any more. They'd been torn and twisted about so that they were more ugly, brutalist sculptures than things that people had once built.
She heard a whining come from behind her. She turned round, dull eyes focusing, and saw. A dog.
Not possible.
A dog, though, all the same.
He was dirty, thin, but aside from that looked healthy enough. He wasn't vicious, savage, wanting to hurt. He looked at her with the hopeful pleading that animals were so good at.
'Hey boy,' she said in a cracked and dusty voice. 'Hey boy. Where's your master?'.
Dogs meant people. They went together. The dog whined again, looked lost, looked abandoned.
'Guess you're all alone. Like me, hey? Come here.'
Nervous, but wanting, the dog padded towards her. She ran a single hand through thick, coarse, dusty fur and started to sob. The dog made a noise, and licked at her face.
'It's ok. Good boy,' she said. 'Good boy. Good boy'.
The sky clouded over above her, the dog kept licking her face, the wind whistled in the ruins. She wasn't alone.
'Dogs mean people,' she said at last. 'Can you help me find people, boy?' He barked.
It hurt. She hurt. The world had broken.
But now, at last, she thought there might be hope somewhere in it.