Wasted by Marya Hornbacher:\n\n"I had to say: I will eat what I want and look as I please and laugh as loud as I like and use the wrong fork and lick my knife. I had to learn strange and delicious lessons, lessons too few women learn: to love the thump of my steps, the implication of weight and presence and taking of space, to love my body's rebellious hungers, responses to touch, to understand myself as more than a brain attached to a bundle of bones."\n\n[[back|Story 8]]
Once, heart-shaped eggs, made from cookie cutters. Elizabeth, naked in his bed, ate them all.\n\nLater, she would eat nothing for the next 36 hours, except coffee and one yellow plum.\n\n[[back|Story 8]]
Elizabeth and Harry agree, and the owner gestures them towards a small stage, where a small woman is already wheeling out the large rectangular box. Elizabeth enjoys the spectacle: she enjoys watching the assistant wiggle her soft cream coloured high heels as her wide mouth smiles a million miles away. She knows the trick: those aren't the feet that belong to that mouth. An upper and a lower half, two women instead of one. Two women, yet merged and molded into the same role. Smile, wiggle your toes, and don't let on that you know there is another woman constructing the second part of you.\n\n[[back|Story 3]]
The puppet gently swings back and forth.\n\n[[back|Story 2]]
Elizabeth's legs find the empty spaces between Harry's, her ear pressing against the fading heaviness of his heartbeat. Hands that were previously rough and forceful now rest lazily in the blanket of her hair, softly stroking. The few minutes of complete, blissful blankness before Elizbaeth's mind gears back up and returns to the winding and whirring of its usual overuse. He rubs her waist, mimicking the incision of a saw.\n\n[[back|Story 6]]
She breaks off his finger, a quick snap. Sucks the bone, her tongue a needle drawing the marrow out so she can later inject it into herself, fill herself up with it. Needs him, all of him. Addicted and sustained, and nothing without. Lipstick coalescing with blood, the pearly white of her teeth coated and stained. \n\n[[back|Story 5]]
She hates the way she needs him, like he's a splint holding her broken bones together. Hates the way she seems to be only half of a person without him.\n\n[[back|Story 1]]
Dolls. Mindless, meant to be samples of perfection. Gone wrong. Horribly and terribly, perversions of an ideal. Dolls were always a joke used to prank Elizabeth as a child, as her older brothers knew her sometimes ridiculous fear of them. She'd come home and find one hiding in her house somewhere, waiting to terrify her with perfectly rosy cheeks. \n\n[[back|Story 2]]
Elizabeth retraces her steps to the stairs. The puppets catch her eye, if only from reading horror stories as a child about dummies coming to life. The idea of inanimate, wooden bodies suddenly springing up and murdering children seemed somehow more terrifying than traditional monster stories.\n\n[[back|Story 1]]
Days later they part, not at the train station, but at his apartment. A calm, enduring kiss and relaxed morning over coffee and [[toast|Panel 8]]. Harry calls the cab and Elizabeth leaves with her leather bag strung over her shoulder. Safe. She leaves more and more behind with each visit. Toiletries, a hairdryer, some makeup, clothes. Then [[books|hunger]], films, shoes. Strands of hair, bobby pins. Pieces of herself. Then one time she accidentally sliced her toe from a piece of [[broken wine glass|Panel 10]], the slight blood stain on the the living room carpet.\n “Til next time,” Harry always says, and Elizabeth always comes back.\n\n[[continue|Story 9]]
Monday, Elizabeth walks into the art gallery she works at. The window displays are heavy curtains, draped and spilling into a pool at the bottom, and Elizabeth thinks of the puppet theatres at the curiousity shop. The gallery is starting its new exhibit today, a [[collection of pieces|Panel 11]] by Maria's, the gallery owner, friend from fine arts school.\n\nThe gallery is empty, the overhead lights buzzing. It usually takes close to an hour for the buzzing to stop, for the lights to be warmed up after first being flicked on. Like muscles, straining after too much exertion and not enough rest. \n\n[[continue|Story 10]]
From the ground up, she restarts. New toes, less scars. Ones that look better in peeptoe pumps. New ankles, ones not damaged from a youth spent playing baseball instead of ballet. Shins, with bones not too big. Less muscle around them. Thighs that don't touch, hip bones that don't jut out. Breathing deep into new lungs, full breaths, the oxygen igniting all her new nerves. No more ulcerated intestines or a throat burned and teeth eroded from stomach acid. She places the new pieces with such care, such love. Protecting them. A new heart. She squeezes tightly, feeling the pulsing in her newly fleshed hands. The water's cold now, the red staining the white porcelain. Cleaning her new skin with a dark towel, Elizabeth inspects herself with clinical precision.\n\nThe end.\n\n[[Is there anything you would have done differently?|Story 14]]
With a pumice stone, she attacks her feet, sawing through layers of calloused skin, then through pink tissue, soaking the pores of the grey stone. Sawing, smoothing, eroding. Once the clumps of skin, fat and sinew are gone, she looks at her\n\n[[toes|BEP1]] \n[[thighs|BEP2]] \n[[armpits|BEP3]] \n[[ribs|BEP4]]\n\n[[continue|Beta Ending 5]]\n
Elizabeth breathes deep, her lungs unrestricted, absorbing only what's been purified in the steam. Nothing left. Nothing really.\n\nNow, to reconstruct.\n\nHer [[heart|BEP5]] \nHer [[scalp|BEP6]]\n \nStop me if you've heard this one before.\n\nYou sure? Okay. Knock knock.\n\n[[Who's there?|Beta Ending 6]]
Harry turns to Elizabeth and tells her he'll be only a moment. Elizabeth [[nods|Panel 1]] and [[walks|Panel 2]] over to a display of fake vomit, fake blood and other prank paraphernalia.\n\n[[continue|Story 2]]
Elizabeth stopped walking underneath a [[puppet|Panel 3]] that was the exact cliche, puppet-turned-monster in a black, two-piece suit and two giant protutrding eyes, gaping mouth, and tiny pencil-like neck. Reaching up, she [[taps the black foot|Panel 4]]. Biting the bottom of her lip and tasting simulated plum and wine flavour, Elizabeth walks over to where Harry and the black-haired owner of the store stand.\n\n[[continue|Story 3]]
“What are you convincing my boyfriend to buy?” Elizabeth asks with a sweet, non-confrontational smile, like confectioner's sugar. She licks the remains of her lipstick off, slightly sickened by the overly sweet taste of it.\n Harry's lips part and he smiles widely, revealing rows of white teeth and takes Elizabeth's hand, pulling her closer to him. “I'm going to learn how to saw my assistant in half.”\n “You don't have an assistant dear.”\n “Then I'll just have to saw you in half, now won't I?”\n “Would you like me to [[demonstrate|Panel 5]]?” the owner asks with a cough. \n\n After they leave the curiousity shop, the saw stays in Elizabeth's mind: the pseudo-severing, a safe thrill with the backbone of grotesqueness. Harry's arm encircles her waist, and with a quick kiss on the cheek, he commands her attention.\n “So, my lovely assistant and partner-in-crime, where should we [[eat dinner|Story 4]]?"
His skin like an addiction. In the dark Elizabeth knows all the contours, muscles, and bones, her lips meeting each body part exactly where she expects. The scar right here, the freckle right there. His skin like an addiction, artificially strawberry flalvoured, his skin turned into hard candy.\n\n[[continue|Story 5]]
She consumes him, [[all of him|Panel 6]]. Everytime he comes near her, the smell of his skin enters her bloodstream, and she attacks, starved and greedy, biting flesh and kissing teeth marks. Carnal, intimate. Suck, and soothe. The smudge of mascara and lipstick, his fingers grabbing full handfuls of hair. Ravenous. Bone by bone, limb by limb: a ripping apart and swallowing, filling, entering, owning, being, needing, consumed, belonging only for you for you for you for you, Elizabeth desperate, chaotic.\n\n[[continue|Story 6]]
Ravaging.\nConsuming.\nBlank.\nLick, taste, consume.\nBlank.\nHeavy breathing, the pistoning of lungs gulping air, sweat on clammy skin.\nWhole, full, wholly, [[calm calm calm|Panel 7]] and breathe and smile.\n\n[[continue|Story 7]]
“What if you accidentally did saw me in half?” Elizabeth asks.\n“Then I'd be able to keep a part of you in two rooms in my apartment.”\nShe kisses his lips, all remnants of her Merlot-flavoured lipstick long gone.\n\n[[continue|Story 8]]
“Know what attracted me to it, Beth?” Maria asks.\n\nElizabeth returns her gaze to the painting. She looks at the face. Closed eyes. Red lips. No, that isn't right, either: the lips aren't [[red|Panel 17]].\n\nElizabeth keeps staring at the painting, scratching at her elbows. Reflection, distortion. She is the [[same|Panel 18]].\n\nChemically, so to speak.\n\n[[continue|Story 13]]
Sleight of hand. Forces. Being tricked into believing the illusion, yet being completely under the control of the magician. Appearance over reality. Like with the saw-in-half trick: not one woman, but two. One hidden, yet integral.\n\nElizabeth attempts the same procedure with makeup. Styling herself into something different. Controlled and ordered, decided upon, chosen and not merely an acceptance of her face as it is. Hiding what she doesn't want like a Russian doll, stacking made-up selves on top of her real, [[hidden self|Story 14]].\n
Maria is nowhere to be found, but the back wall – which was empty yetserday – is now filled with a startling painting. Startling in its subject matter, a painting Elizabeth would have thought yesterday was too gaudy for Maria's taste: a frolicking ballerina.\n\nElizabeth approaches the painting. [[Why did the ballerina cross the road?|Panel 12]] \n\n
“What do you think?” Maria asks from behind her.\n\n"It's [[fierce|Panel 14]].” \n\nor.\n\n“I [[hated|Panel 15]] it at first.” \n\nor.\n\n“At least it's not a [[bouquet|Panel 16]].” \n
Elizabeth is seated, spine erect. Her peach-painted lips are curled down at the corners like wrinkles in linen. Squinting eyes, she examines her work carefully in the large, oval mirror parallel to her right-angled form. A thin line of dark brown eyeliner on each lid. A careful brown line in the bottom corner of each eye. Coffee-coloured mascara, clump-free and voluminious, quite unlike the stringy eyelashes she fears. A circle of perfect apple-red blush on each cheek. Wrong.\n\nFingers clench, nails cutting into her skin like spreading knives digging into frozen butter. Elizabeth darts across the room towards the bathroom.\n\nShe [[turns on|Panel 21A]] the light.\n\nor\n\nShe [[does not turn on|Panel 21B]] the light.
Elizabeth breathes deep, her lungs unrestricted, absorbing only what's been purified in the steam. Nothing left. Nothing really.\n\nNow, to reconstruct.\n\nHer [[heart|Panel 23A]] \nHer [[scalp|Panel 23B]]\n \n[[Stop me|FPSPB]] if you've heard this one before.\n\nYou sure? Okay. Knock knock.\n\n[[Who's there?|Alpha 3]]
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
Her heart. It beats too fast, leads to hysertics and dizziness. Just have to reinforce it, slow down, take a deep breathe, like trying to stop the hiccups. Banal, really. Deep breathing, like in corpse pose. Get it? \n\n[[back|Beta Ending 5]]
Elizabeth raises an arm that is still so heavy despite being simple bone – reams of muscle still clinging add all the weight. With pinpoint precision she inserts her fingers in the spaces between each rib, grasping with bone on bone to tear them apart. Get deeper. Snap. Marrow oozing, draining, mixing, evaporating with the steam. \n\n[[back|Beta Ending 4]]
With a stray rib-bone, Elizabeth scraps off the remaining bits of stringy flesh where her armpits should be. Botox works just as well – let's fix all those errant pieces of skin, shall we? \n\n[[back|Beta Ending 4]]
Her thighs are the tricky part, stubborn bits of hardened muscle from yoga. Her prying fingers, mostly just bones at the tips with ragged sheets of skin still attached, claw and cleanse.\n\n[[back|Beta Ending 4]]
She easily plucks out the toe nails: he loves me, he loves me not. She laughs at this.\n\n[[back|Beta Ending 4]]
The next morning, Elizabeth wakes up in her own bed. Harry's keys are still clutched in her hand. The teeth embedded into her soft skin. She feels like a sponge. Absorbing everything through a million holes. Hollow, essentially, just pores for the dirt to seep into.\n\nPressing her palm against the mattress, she releases the key, hoping to lose it in the sheets. Lead feet, filled with pins and needles but otherwise unintelligible as her own – but how else could she walk? -- carry her to her bathroom. Warm water from the faucet, a clean face cloth. Scrub the pores, really good. Deep foaming cleanser, guaranteed to refresh. Clean, beautiful. Scrub them until even the dirt doesn't remain.\n\n[[continue|Beta Ending 3]]
She won't crumble. Not yet. Picks herself back up, shaking shaking shaking shaking. The destruction of her new bones is coming, she feels it. They weren't ready. She should have known better. Too much, too fast. What was she thinking? Her toes splintered first. She couldn't run in stilettos. The straps were too tight, strangling, breaking the very bones themselves. She runs. Tears, mucus, sweat, blood from her ribs piercing all her organs. Lungs suffocated, filled with a thick mucus that choke her. Her eyeballs burns. Tears are too hot. Hery eyelashes melt off. Cheeks, apples decomposed with worms snaking and mocking through her jaw bone and teeth.\n\n[[continue|Final Panel Ending]]
All she sees are the legs. Long, smooth, slightly slick with sweat. Bright red toenail polish. Blankets bissect teh body, leaving nothing above two small knees except for a cream duvet. No movement, no sounds. Calm. Sleeping. Harry's whole body is entirely encased in the duvet. Black hair fanned out on the pillow beside his. Elizabeth's [[ribs crack|Panel 32]], cave in from the pressure of her breath. Chest constricts, her heart punctured by the splintered ends of rib bones that were never sound enough to encase her entire lungs and the force behind each [[desperate breath|Panel 33]]. \n\n[[continue|Alpha 12]]
The next day (again, every day is a baby step), Elizabeth walks up to Harry's apartment. Her new legs, strengthened, the muscle fused together around the cracks that had appeared during the opening party. She feels [[confident|Panel 40]].\n\n The key Harry had given her hangs on her keychain, temporarily lost amongst all the [[other keys|Panel 30]] Elizabeth has. \n\nWalking up the stairs as she has done a thousand times before, Elizabeth plays over their upcoming [[conversation|Panel 31]]. \n\nElizabeth wanted to surprise Harry, share her good news and good spirit with him. He shouldered so much of her stress and frustration that it had been awhile since Elizabeth remembered not feeling like she was using him as a sponge to clean up her emotional mess. \n\nFinding his key, she opens the door.\n\nThe apartment is still, quiet, Beginning to unbutton her blouse, Elizabeth silent [[opens his bedroom door|Alpha 11]].
Her heart. It beats too fast, leads to hysertics and dizziness. Just have to reinforce it, slow down, take a deep breathe, like trying to stop the hiccups. Banal, really. Deep breathing, like in corpse pose. Get it? \n\n[[back|Alpha 2]]
Just drop the blow dryer in the tub – electrodes to the scalp, bite down please, and okay, here we go, one, two, three – and remember, blow dry your hair upside down to provide maximum volume, first on high heat, then on cool to allow it to set. This prevents sweat from building on your scalp, and weighing your 'do down.\n\n[[back|Alpha 2]]
Elizabeth thinks what it would be like to have new bones, stronger than the ones she has now. Less prone to injury, more enticing. That's what's wrong with her: her entire structural support is off.\n\nSnap a femur here, replace her collarbone, and voila, a whole new Elizabeth, complete with a new blood type and everything.\n\n[[back|Beta 3]]
She runs. Tears, mucus, sweat, blood from her ribs piercing all her organs. Lungs suffocated, filled with a thick mucus that chokes her. Her eyeballs burn. Tears are too hot. Her eyelashes melt off. Cheeks, apples decomposed with worms snaking and mocking through her jaw bone and teeth.\n\n[[continue|Final Panel Ending Beta]]
A slow fracturing from the inside out. Intense pain as the bone shards rip into her muscles, severing tendons and puncturing capillaries and veins. Help me, she tries to mutter, but her flesh is decomposing from the lack of blood and oxygen, lips peeling like the mouldy skin off a banana.\n\n[[back|Beta 5]]
She hadn't told him she was coming. They hadn't spoken since the day before. She had texted him a quick “Launch is great, having the best time” then forgot her phone in her purse. \n\n[[back|Beta 4]]
Her apartment, her mother's home in Windsor, the gallery's front door, the lock for the storage vault. Now Harry's.\n\n[[back|Beta 4]]
Maria grabs her elbow, intercepting Elizabeth's last attempt at escape. Where Maria's fingers gently touch Elizabeth's elbow, Elizabeth feels more fratures. Hairline, but reaching and spreading like gangrene.\n\nNo no no no no.\n\n"Mr. Chevalier is interested in the ballerina print," Maria says.\n\nElizabeth's eyes [[roll over to the painting|Panel 38]].\n\n"The artist will be pleased," Elizabeth says.\n\n"Well, it was your sales pitch, really, Beth. What have I always said? Selling a piece is partly about selling your personality, and you, my love, have been [[radiant|Panel 39]] tonight."\n
"Yes, Mr. Chevalier, the tones in this painting are really reminiscent of the baroque style. The artist knew the Masters."\n\nSmile wider, she tells herself. She knows she has a becoming smile, one that suits her face. Does it suit her new face? \n\n[[continue|Alpha 7]]
Merlot lipstick, always.\n\n[[back|Alpha 6]]
Enough to notice, not too much to become exaggerated. Snap, click, snap, click, cogs folding meticulously into place. If only her new bones were metal, impervious and strong. Infallible. \n\n[[back|Alpha 4]]
Elizabeth manages to return Maria's smile. That's all it is. She could do this. Mind over matter, even if the matter is your bones shattering within your skin. Radiant. Radiant. Not mouldy, bloody, sweaty, pussy, or in any other way putrefying. Radiant . Radiant radiant radiant.\n\nElizabeth approaches Mr. Chevalier, "I hear you're the proud new owner." Raising a pefectly sculpted eyebrow, Elizabeth gestures to the ballerina painting. "Isn't she just radiant?"\n\n[[continue|Alpha 10]]
The drowned ballerina's grotesque face mocks Elizabeths, which feels caked with sweat under 24-hour stay primer, vanilla foundation, oil-free blush, bronzer and highlighter combination. No. The ballerina's face looks delicate, soft and demure, the kind of face a lover would gently caress and kiss all over.\n\n[[back|Panel 37]]
A couple walks into a curiousity shop -- [[stop me|FPSPA]] if you've heard this one before. Let's call them Elizabeth and Harry. The shop is down the stairs, the descent meant to invoke the feeling of descending into a toy box. Puppets, strung from the ceiling, hang down from pieces of twine, floating wooden and woolen bodies with leering faces and bulging eyes. The wall opposite the stairs is covered with puppet theatres, ranging from the typical wooden panel with a giant cut out for the stage, to elaborate gilded brass and metallic theatres.\n\n[[continue|Story 1]]
Elizabeth turns the taps, filling her bathtub with boiling water. Elizabeth turns off the the tap, sinking into the steam, the water turning her flesh into a bright red splotch, a disinfecting rash. The water burns through layer after layer of pink skin, the peeled ribbons disintegrating in the water. Through skin and muscle, a cleansing acid, removing all tangible evidence. Clear water blooming with blossoms of blood as the last of the skin and muscle drops [[away|Beta Ending 4]].
The next morning, she wakes up in her own bed. \n\n\nThe end.
The next morning Elizabeth wakes up in her own bed. She feels like a sponge. Absorbing everything into a million holes. Hollow, essentially, just pores for the dirt seep into.\n\nThe end.
Kaitlin Tremblay
Turning to re-emerge to the launch, she feels a twinge in her hip. A sharp pain, like smacking your funny bone off something hard. Biting her newly painted lips, Elizabeth massages her hips, her fingers pressing hard to erase the pain. Instead, she feels her fingers sink into the bone, through the muscle, a hot knife cutting through butter. Accidentally plunges her manicured nail into her hip bone, and moans, more out of shock and fear than pain.\n\nNo. One word. That's it. No. No no no no no no no.\n\nShe pushes through the door, refusing to accept what she already knows. Why would she ever think this would work in the first place? She ignores the blinding pain in her hip, glad at least the fracture is localized. Contained. She imagines quarantining the rest of her body, isolating the offending hip bone. Patient Zero.\n\nShe [[returns to the party|Panel 37]].\n\nShe [[leaves the party|Alpha 10]].
She escapes to the back room, pulling a compact out of her clutch and reapplying the lipstick, making sure to fill the out the tips of her lips. Dark lipstick contrasted to the accented cupid's bow that she used a highlighter on earlier. Her face is framed by the heavy black outline of her compact mirror, her pale face floating in the dark back room.\n\n[[continue|Alpha 9]]
From the ground up, she restarts. New toes, less scars. Ones that look better in peeptoe pumps. New ankles, ones not damaged from a youth spent playing baseball instead of ballet. Shins, with bones not too big. Less muscle around them. Thighs that don't touch, hip bones that don't jut out. Breathing deep into new lungs, full breaths, the oxygen igniting all her new nerves. No more ulcerated intestines or a throat burned and teeth eroded from stomach acid. She places the new pieces with such care, such love. Protecting them. A new heart. She squeezes tightly, feeling the pulsing in her newly fleshed hands. The water's cold now, the red staining the white porcelain. Cleaning her new skin with a dark towel, Elizabeth inspects herself with clinical precision.\n\n[[continue|Alpha 4]]
Just get to the Greyhound. Her elbow rips through her skin, stinging as the cool air berates the exposed bone. Breasts shrivel, fall, dried peaches. Fuck it. Everything else, her eyes, peeled grapes. Close your eyes, stick your hand in this bowl, and feel witches eyeballs!! What's [[next|Ending 1 Beta]]?
With a pumice stone, she attacks her feet, sawing through layers of calloused skin, then through pink tissue, soaking the pores of the grey stone. Sawing, smoothing, eroding. Once the clumps of skin, fat and sinew are gone, she looks at her\n\n[[toes|Panel 22A]] \n[[thighs|Panel 22D]] \n[[ribs|Panel 22B]] \n[[armpits|Panel 22C]]\n\n[[continue|Alpha 2]]\n\n
The corners of her lips crack, dried out from the wine and shop talk.\n\n"Excuse me," she smiles, with a gentle hand -- long, slender, delicate fingers adorned with glittering rings -- on Mr. Chevalier's shoulder, "I'll be right back."\n\n[[continue|Alpha 8]]
Elizabeth smiles, feeling the way her [[new lips|Panel 35]] stretch over pearly white teeth. Teeth Snow White would be jealous of. She practices.\n\nShe is having a conversation with one of the top art buyers in Toronto, Mr. Chevalier.\n\nTalk about the [[ballerina painting|Panel 36]].\n\nTalk about [[nothing|Alpha 7]].
The opening is tonight. Elizabeth feels insulated, strong and protected. Wrapped in a bubble wrap, safely insulated from other people's carelessness.\n\n[[continue|Alpha 6]]
The next day, Elizabeth decides to walk to the gallery, rather than dealing with the always unreliable streetcar. In brand new heels – soft beige, two-inch heel, pointed toe – Elizabeth feels the new joints in her legs working. She loves the way her hip clicks in place, wearing a new groove in the bone as she practices [[swinging|Panel 34]] her hips ever so slightly. \n\n[[continue|Alpha 5]]
\n"I Cannot Understand Why My Arm Is Not A Lilac Tree"\n-Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers\n\nStop Me If You've Heard This One Before is an interactive horror story and mostly true memoir. Sometimes metaphors are more real than the events that happen. Sometimes the metaphors are more violent, too.\n\n[[Ready to begin?|Beginning]]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Globs of dark purple and red paint form limbs attached by coarse strings. Legs loosely tied together at the pelvis, a poorly cared-for marionette, twisted up and backwards. An arm joined too low, mistmached breasts, a dislocated wirst. The face: comic, grotesque. Exaggerated for maximum laughs. Wide eyes, protruding like pimples, bulging veins and filmy tears. A botoxed smile, rigged up into dimples (accent with freckles and coordinate with a bowtie.)\n\nBroken toes, unable to stay en pointe. Bloodied slippers, and busted cartilage. \n\n[[back|Story 12]]
The piece in the window display is an abstract piece, beiges and navy blues forced into contrast, emitting a simultaneous calm and frenzied atmosphere. \n\n[[back|Story 9]]
She had thrown it at him, angry, broken, the shards of glass a relief, catharsis against an otherwise defeated rage that knew no other manifest. Her hands clawed at her stomach, nails digging red, raw trenches into her skin. Deep breaths, but she wasn't able to control the anger, the hurt. \n\n“I'm sorry!” he shouted, as Elizabeth crumples to the floor, fingers clawing past the skin and into her stomach, severing her body just above her pelvic bone. Focus on the way her fingers feels beneath hot fat. \n\nInsufficient. In his story, she is only a torso.\n\n[[back|Story 8]]
Laughing, laughing, laughing. Elizabeth: red, clown lips, her foundation too white (her skin tone is vanilla, not ivory, but how did she know there wasn't a difference?) Laughing, laughing, laughing, it's such a gas.\n\n[[back|Panel 12]]
The painting is gigantic, overwhelming, and massively more impressive than Elizabeth herself. Dark background, wisps of red slashed through the darkness, silk scarves draped from the ethereal hands of the ballerina en pointe in the foreground.\n\nShe thinks of it as a [[fun-house mirror|Panel 13]], distorting and reflecting back Elizabeth's own entanglement. The painting: active, composed symmetrically, balanced and unified through the red which bleeds through the whole painting from the silk scarves to the dancer's cherry lips to her soft pink shoes.\n\n[[continue|Story 11]]
Maria's response: “You'll see what I see in it, soon, pet.” \n\n[[continue|Story 12]]
Maria's response: “She's a ballerina, darling, there's nothing fierce about her. All lace and grace."\n\n[[continue|Story 12]]
Instead, purple, swollen, like the dancer had been drowned. That's when Elizabeth notices the slight bluish glean to the skin, rivulted with a soft, but uncomfortable pale blue. Completely overshadowed by the startling red scarves. \n\n“She's dead.”\n\n“You know I can't resist the melodrama of the dead dancing,” Maria smirks, holds a manicured finger to her lips, and gives Elizabeth a wink. \n\n[[back|Story 12]]
Maria's response: “The only appropriate subject matter for women to paint is themselves or flowers.” A joke between them, something Elizabeth once read in an 18th century essay about painting.\n\n[[continue|Story 12]]
Just get to the Greyhound. Her elbow rips through her skin, stinging as the cool air berates the exposed bone. Breasts shrivel, fall, dried peaches. Fuck it. Everything else, her eyes, peeled grapes. Close your eyes, stick your hand in this bowl, and feel witch's eyeballs!! What's [[next|Ending 1]]?
Just drop the blow dryer in the tub – electrodes to the scalp, bite down please, and okay, here we go, one, two, three – and remember, blow dry your hair upside down to provide maxium volume, first on high heat, then on cool to allow it to set. This prevents sweat from building on your scalp, and weighing your 'do down.\n\n[[back|Beta Ending 5]]
\na { color: maroon !important }\n\nBODY {background-color:Gainsboro;}\n\ndiv { color:black; }\n\n#footer { display: This story was created by Kaitlin Tremblay }
Her thighs are the tricky part, stubborn bits of hardened muscle from yoga. Her prying fingers, mostly just bones at the tips, with ragged sheets of skin still attached, claw and cleanse.\n\n[[back|Alpha 1]]
With a stray rib-bone, Elizabeth scraps off the remaining bits of stringy flesh where her armpits should be. Botox works just as well – let's fix all those errant pieces of skin, shall we? \n\n[[back|Alpha 1]]
Elizabeth raises an arm that is still so heavy despite being simple bone – reams of muscle still clinging add all the weight. With pinpoint precision she inserts her fingers in the spaces between each rib, grasping with bone on bone to tear them apart. Get deeper. Snap. Marrow oozing, draining, mixing, evaporating with the steam. \n\n[[back|Alpha 1]]
She easily plucks out the toe nails: he loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. She laughs at this, at the wrongness of it, just the residue of a childhood memory.\n\nHe loves me, he loves me not.\n\n[[back|Alpha 1]]
A crumby mummy! (Canned laughter) \n\n[[back|Ending 1]]
The next day, Elizabeth decides to walk to the gallery, rather than dealing with the always unreliable streetcar. She passes a cafe, and doesn't stop for breakfast. She doesn't call Harry, either.\n\nThe opening is tonight, and Maria is predictably strung-out. Her contagious stress usually contaminates Elizabeth, and the two become a circular frenzied unit. But today Elizabeth feels insulated, strong, protected. Wrapped in a bubble wrap, safely insulated from other people's carelessness.\n\n\n\n[[continue|Beta 2]]
Hours later, and the reception is in full swing. Guests ooh and awe at the paintings, Maria dazzles everyone with witty anecdotes about the acquisition of the pieces.\n\nElizabeth stands in front of the ballerina painting, her body a rigid pole compared to the fluidity of the ballerina's frozen movements.\n\nElizabeth smiles to the patron she is speaking with. “Yes, Mr. Chevalier, the tones in this painting are really reminiscent of the baroque style. The artist knew the Masters.”\n\nElizabeth's eyes roll over to the painting. The drowned ballerina's grotesque face mocks Elizabeth's, which feels caked with sweat under her 24-hour stay primer, vanilla foundation, oil-free blush, bronzer, and highlighter combination. No. The ballerina's face looks delicate, soft and demure, the kind of face a lover would gently caress and kiss all over.\n\nMr. Chevalier makes a comment, offers a price on the painting.\n\nElizabeth nods and smiles wider, knows she has a becoming smile, one that suits her face.\n\n\n[[continue|Beta 3]]
Later on, Elizabeth tells Maria the good news. \n\n“Well, it was your sales pitch, really. You have been radiant tonight.”\n\nThey share a toast, and Elizabeth worries about whether or not her teeth are purple from all the red wine. She manages to return Maria's smile. That's all it is. She could do this. Mind over matter, even if the matter is the uncontrollable feeling of her bones [[shattering|Extra 1]] within her skin. Radiant. Radiant. Not mouldy, bloody, sweaty, pussy, or in any other way putrfying. Raidiant. Radiant radiant radiant.\n\nElizabeth spends the rest of the night smiling, hanging onto the feeling of radiance like it's her life support system, externally pumping her lungs, forcing her to take her own deep breaths. Soon, she thinks, I can do this on my own.\n\n[[continue|Beta 4]]
The next morning, again. Every day is a baby step.\n\nElated, Elizabeth walks up to Harry's apartment. The key Harry gave her hangs on her keychain, temporarily lost amongst all the [[other keys|Panel 30]] Elizabeth has. \n\nWalking up the stairs as she has done a thousand times before, Elizabeth plays over their upcoming [[conversation|Panel 31]]. \n\nElizabeth wanted to surprise Harry, share her good news and good spirit with him. He shouldered so much of her stress and frustration that it had been awhile since Elizabeth remembered not feeling like she was using him as a sponge to clean up her emotional mess. \n\nFinding his key, she opens the door.\n\nThe apartment is still, quiet. Beginning to unbutton her blouse, Elizabeth silently [[opens his bedroom door|Beta 5]].
All she sees are the legs. Long, smooth, slightly slick with sweat. Bright red toenail polish. Blankets bissect the body, leaving nothing above two small knees except for a cream duvet. No movement, no sounds. Calm. Sleeping. Harry's whole body is entirely encased in the duvet. Black hair fanned out on the pillow beside his. Elizabeth's [[ribs crack|Panel 32]], cave in from the pressure of her breath. Chest constricts, her heart punctured by the splintered ends of rib bones that were never sound enough to encase her entire lungs and the force behind each [[desperate breath|Panel 33]]. \n\n
\nSpaghetti hair? We all know this one, already. She runs, feeling held together with toilet paper like a mummy at a kid's party. What do you call a mummy who eats cookies [[in bed|Panel 75]]?\n \nShe boards the Greyhound, unsure of how she got there, a corpse in Chanel.\n\n[[continue|Beta Ending]]
Elizabeth turns the taps, filling her bathtub with boiling water. Elizabeth turns off the the tap, sinking into the steam, the water turning her flesh into a bright red splotch, a disinfecting rash. The water burns through layer after layer of pink skin, the peeled ribbons disintegrating in the water. Through skin and muscle, a cleansing acid, removing all tangible evidence. Clear water blooming with blossoms of blood as the last of the skin and muscle drops [[away|Alpha 1]].
She is walking in new stilettos, adorned with an ankle ribbon, designed to mimic the young innocence in a ballet shoe. Knotted into a bow just above her ankle bone, like a structural support system.\n\n[[back|Alpha 10]]
Elizabeth catches a glimpse of her flushed face in the mirror and frowns. Her cheeks are blushed, even pinker than when she had been wearing the rouge. Her peach lips twist into each other, and she bites at her bottom lip as she stares at her cheeks. Too pink. Tapping her fingers against her bare thighs, she searches her vanity table for the beige bottle of foundation. There, amongst the concealers and eyebrow pencils. Snatching it, she squeezes some of the liquid onto the tip of her finger. She begins to rub it into her cheeks, watching the pale beige seep into the hot pink. The brightness begins to fade, but now her face is unevenly pale. Snapping her fingers and gnawing at her bottom lip, Elizabeth decides to start over again, this time to evenly apply the foundation across her entire face after using a green-tinted primer to counter the redness. Stupid, she scolds, I should have done that in the first place.\n\nFlustered, Elizabeth turns off the light, her face feeling bright red for the rest of the night.\n\n[[continue|Beta 1]]
\nSpaghetti hair? We all know this one, already. She runs, feeling held together with toilet paper like a mummy at a kid's party. What do you call a mummy who eats cookies [[in bed|Panel 75]]?\n \nShe boards the Greyhound, unsure of how she got there, a corpse in Chanel.\n\n[[continue|Ending 2]]
The next morning, Elizabeth wakes up in her own bed. Harry's keys are still clutched in her hand. The teeth embedded into her soft skin. She feels like a sponge. Absorbing everything through a million holes. Hollow, essentially, just pores for the dirt to seep into.\n\nPressing her palm against the mattress, she releases the key, hoping to lose it in the sheets. Lead feet, filled with pins and needles but otherwise unintelligible as her own – but how else could she walk? -- carry her to her bathroom. Warm water from the faucet, a clean face cloth. Scrub the pores, really good. Deep foaming cleanser, guaranteed to refresh. Clean, beautiful. Scrub them until even the dirt doesn't remain.\n\nThe end.\n\n[[Is there anything you would have done differently?|Story 14]]