She woke up, her alarm was ringing.
She’d overslept again. This was the third time this week!
Luckily, she had only overslept by five minutes and she always allowed enough time to get ready for work. She would have to do something simple with her hair again, no time to blow-dry, just a pony tail.
Walking into the bathroom she checked her face.
Was that a new wrinkle? There just above her right eyebrow?
She didn’t remember seeing it before. She had a few frown lines on her forehead, but who didn’t when they’d passed the thirty mark?
After her shower she slapped on a bit of extra moisturiser, just to try to keep the lines at bay. She also promised herself a spa day in the not too distant future.
Her commute into work wasn’t remarkable. The usual traffic, the usual impatient honking of horns. The idiot who cut into her lane without any indication. Why did people insist on driving without bothering to let others know what they are going to do? They’ll end up on a slab one day in the morgue where she worked.
She worked as a mortician at the local morgue. Not a glamorous job but it was stable, there will always be a constant supply of customers, that was for sure.
As she arrived at work her colleagues all greeted her. It may surprise people to know that people who work in the morgue were actually quite upbeat and friendly. She got on with almost everyone. Of course, she spent most of her time with the customers and they couldn’t answer back or get on her nerves. She probably had the best customers of any company anywhere in the world!
Stan came up to her to give her the news.
“Morning Jenny, you’ve got two new ones come in this morning. Do your best to a make them look nice for their families. One is a lady in her early 90’s who died in her sleep. The other’s a girl in her early twenties, had an overdose, poor thing. See what you can do.”
She went into her studio and looked at her customers. What a contrast.
One was as wrinkled as a burlap sack. There wasn’t much skin that wasn’t wrinkled.
The other was as perfect as a body could be. Not a blemish on it. The face didn’t have a single wrinkle. It was flawless.
And yet, here was a woman who had lived a long life. Who had had children and grandchildren and who, judging from the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth, must have enjoyed a good laugh. The wrinkles were like life’s calling card etched on her body for all to see.
And there was this poor, lovely, unblemished girl who had not really had much of a chance to live life to the full.
She realised who she most wanted to be like.
Never again would she look at a wrinkle in the same way.
It wasn’t a curse, each was a little blessing.
She was lucky to have her wrinkles. So many people didn’t live long enough to get them.
Copyright: Kristian Fogarty 16/March/2018
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/wrinkle/
via Daily Prompt: Wrinkle
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