Friday 28th November

Good morning to you. And here's your prompt for today ...

28

The blisters make walking agony. She wishes she wasn't vain, that she wore flat shoes, stomped happily. Then she looks down and sees the red sequin flash. Home, she sighs.

40 comments:

  1. She wears sensible shoes and never talks about her personal life. First day on the job she wore high heels to impress, but she fell over and broke her ankle.

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  2. shape of hot™ wonderbra
    ruby pumps
    blond hair extensions
    face hidden under plaster
    a corset keeping her
    together
    the desperation hanging
    around her neck
    the only sincerity about her

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  3. Hehe. Ain't that always the way, Frances?

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  4. There was a sequin sequence. Red sequin, Amber sequin, Green sequin. She began to feel nauseous at the thought of words beginning with seq-. Fortunately sequestration and sequoias never featured.

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  5. yes Anonymous and it's a true story!

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  6. A few toads for the pot, a death’s head moth and a lizard’s gizzard. She turns back for the cave just as the house spins down from the sky.

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  7. ‘She’ entered this virtual world to escape ‘her’ reality; now, despite the curves, that hair, those sequins, the lightness in each step, ‘she’ could feel ‘her’ inner despair going digital.

    Martin

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  8. When my feet grew too fast for my shoes, I ran barefoot. Later I danced in Blahniks, ignoring the blisters. Bunions split my slippers, but soon I won’t need them.

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  9. On her eighteenth
    birthday, she was
    given a key
    to a room-
    familiar scents filled
    her lungs
    and red
    ballet shoes lay
    on a bed-
    like her parents souls
    reunited.

    echulme@hotmail.com

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  10. She wished
    for ruby slippers
    but
    what she got
    was hot steel
    nailed into each sole
    and her toenails
    painted with creosote.
    “Sucks to be a satyr,”
    her father said.

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  11. Dorothy was tired of following the Yellow Brick Road. Her companions were really getting up her nose. She clicked her red shoes together. 'There's no place like home', she said.

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  12. He said he only remembered her wearing sensible shoes. She couldn't remember his shoes, just an image of him barefoot in his jeans, that warmed her on cold Winter days.

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  13. I love my wellies! Who needs high heels when there's all those splashy puddles to explore? Wheeeeeeeee! See - I can cover you in mud, no problem. I'll never grow up...

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  14. Relief. A glance in the hallway mirror at smeared mascara. Trepidation. Tomorrow would bring the atmosphere, the emails, the texts. And the knowing looks. She hated the office Christmas party.

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. Beneath their green serge gymslips
    under sensible interlock knickers,
    the girls of the Immaculate Conception
    wear thongs;
    butterfly slips of gaudy silk
    caress their skin,
    whispering promises of
    manifold delights.

    freya_scott@yahoo.com

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  17. My son comes from school,
    Removes his tight shoes ,
    heaves sigh, a stringent measure of
    school discipline of blisters,
    I see pearly
    smiles in his face, I abrogate
    such rules .

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  18. Light begins to fade along the path
    between the homeless and the middle class.
    She rests her naked, cold and blistered feet;
    clicks her heels thrice and falls to sleep.

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  19. She clicks red heels and sequins flash. Dorothy is dancing ; she has drunk too much tequila. She gently slids onto the hard, cold pavement. There is no yellow brick road.

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  20. She wore flat shoes, stomped for miles. Anything her big brothers could do…But the blisters and the blood-red flash in her lacy, white socks told otherwise. Only pride prevented tears.

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  21. The tiniest muscles of my feet burn with strain.
    Yet this pain buys nights
    when my heels fly smoothly
    winged with the glitter of sequins
    in the embrace of tango.

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  22. Her knee-length dress was flattering not flirtatious; cleavage subtle.
    Her 4” heel, deliberately loosened, dangerously near collapse.
    Must select quickly; trip convincingly. Hadn’t failed yet!
    He’d better be worth it!

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  23. She straightens her bows, smooths down her pinafore and slips on the red shoes. Raising an eyebrow, she looks at his scarecrow costume and says, “This better be worth it!”

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  24. Vanity is the name of her cat. She tries to make it disappear under a cushion. Green eyes staring out like crazy, body cropuched, fur thinning. Will you take it?


    debbiemrgn123@yahoo.co.uk

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  25. Vanity is the name of her cat. She tries to make it disappear under a cushion. Green eyes staring out like crazy, body crouched, fur thinning. Will you take it?

    debbiemrgn123@yahoo.co.uk

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  26. He's fed up with it, the stale smell of her perfume on everything. Later, throat dry, trying to breathe through smoke. 'Home,' he told the firemen, 'had lost its appeal.'

    debbiemrgn123@yahoo.co.uk

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  27. When I woke up
    He’d gone. The only reminder,
    a soapy footprint
    on my bathroom floor.
    I traced it
    with my fingertip,
    Then stomped on it
    with all my might.

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  28. CARRIE AND HER LAST TRICK

    Carrie stands in front of the mirror, eyeing the folds of skin at her hips, the droop and drag of her breasts, the sag-unshape of her. She shakes her hair loose and leans in close towards her own reflection. She licks her lips and pinches her cheeks pink.

    ‘One last time,’ she says.

    She spritz-sprays her body with perfume, smelling suddenly of flowers and vanilla, dabs it behind her ears and on the insides of her wrists. She paints her eyes, a pencil arch to her brows and a smudge of blue on the lids.

    Then Carrie dresses. Pants of lace-edged silk. The whalebone nip and tuck of a corset that cracks and creaks when she bends. A garter belt with snap-fastenings hanging against her. The whisper-slide of stocking up first one leg and then the other. And finally, the dress lowered over her head, falling around her, reaching to the floor, making a shush shush sound when she moves.

    She gargles with a mouthful of mint water, spits into the bowl and covers it with a cloth.

    Downstairs he will be waiting, as he is every fourth Saturday night just after eight, breath flavoured with whisky and cigarettes, and his words already slurring. And he will choose her again, out of all the rest. He won’t have shaved or washed, the grey dust of the prairie in the creases of his skin.

    Afterwards, he pays her with bills folded in sweat and smelling of cow shit, not enough for what she does.

    Tonight, when he sleeps, she’ll take the extra she deserves, and he’ll never know, except that with all she has saved, there’ll be no more Saturday nights lying next to a pig in his own dirt.

    Carrie slips her feet into shoes that hurt, one last time.

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  29. TO CATCH A PRINCE

    In the grim Grimm story, the slipper don’t fit, not their big sister feet, not though they push and squeeze and turn their toes under the soles, like folding paper or cloth.

    ‘It will fit,’ they protest. ‘It must.’

    And so they cut and carve the skin to make them fit, clippit and nippit their feet, and the glass or green slipper filling with their blood.

    ‘See, see,’ they squeal, wincing as they try to stand, and never after dancing with a prince who prefers his women a little nearer to beauty.

    And the Japanese, didn’t they once bind the feet of their infant daughters, wrapped in cloth and the toes turned back on themselves, and tears for every step they took. And grown into stub-toed cripples, all of them, baby steps the only steps they could take.

    The shoes were on sale. Still expensive. Red leather uppers, the stitching tight and neat, and with pointed toes and heels.

    ‘In a six?’ I asked him, the kneeling would-be prince who absently stroked my feet.

    ‘A six?’ I said again.

    He shook his head.

    ‘Not in a six?’ I asked.

    He made to go.

    I took them in a five.

    ‘They might be a little tight,’ he said, ‘a little narrow. Shouldn’t you try them on first?’

    I paid and hurried out of the shop, fearful that he might snatch them back and find another Cinderella to be the princess.

    He was right of course. So tight they cut and carved my toes into different shapes, and the shoes filled with blood, or would have if I hadn’t used plasters. And baby steps my only steps, and tears spilling, and not ever dancing in them, but sitting this one out and the next one, and watching prince after prince skipping by.

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  30. She wears sensible shoes, as practical and comfortable as she is. But always at night she dreams of red stilettos, of sequins and ribbons, of fun and games. Dream on.

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  31. Toni lifted her head and looked at the changing sky. Dawn was coming and her feet ached. She thought back to the party. She knew she should have kept her hands to herself, but she hadn’t. When Carla had started going on about their holiday in Antigua and the new car, she had to do something. Anyway, Toni had only dumped Matthew a few days before, so he wasn’t really Carla’s at all. Toni hated seeing with Carla. It brought out the worst in her. How dare she pick up her rejects?
    Toni had been forced to teach her a lesson. It doesn’t take much. Men are easy. Show a half drunk bloke a bit of cleavage and interest. She simply jumped him while he was getting a beer in the kitchen.
    She smiled down at her feet again. Shoes! She had bought five pairs last week, she loved them. Her calves ached. She wished she had gone to that spinning class she kept threatening herself with, but watching Big Brother and going out always seemed to get priority.
    Why did life seem so complicated? It had seemed so simple back at school. Although the nun’s had threatened her constantly with damnation, she had never really understood what they meant.
    Seven deadly sins- Crap. Pride- tick, Envy- tick, Greed- tick, Lust- tick, Anger- tick, Gluttony- tick, Sloth- tick, yes! Once a convent school girl, always a convent school girl, a full set in one party, the sister’s would be proud of her.
    She listened to the metallic click of the heels from her red sequined `screw me’ shoes and smirked at the memory of Carla’s face when she had found them in the kitchen. So she’d lost her lift home. Did she feel guilty? No. Hell, these shoes look good!

    Monkey @ monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk

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  32. She arrived home tired, blistered and ready to stop.
    First the shoes.
    Cleaning.
    Placing in their box.
    Placing the box in its position,
    in the red section,
    subsection sequins.
    Perfect.

    Redjim99

    jimbarron@walkauvergne.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  33. The aroma of shoe shop cardboard would make Susan salivate. She had her eye on a pair of red killer heels. She always did have her eye on something in the window but she was sure that the patent leather was winking at her as she tried to avert her eyes on the way to the bank. Even after she'd passed, red floaters hung around on the inside of her eyelids, still there whether she blinked or not.

    Back at the office, she was unable to concentrate on the spreadsheet on the screen. The monthly figures had been good. There had been nothing to worry about, they'd even celebrated their recent success at the local pizzeria. Feeling rather too satisfied by the club sandwich and chocolate milkshake she'd had for lunch, Susan let her concentration slip and the numbers began to blur and merge. She was just congratulating herself on her unprecedented self control in the shopping mall when she saw red.

    Column E - and it was a whole column – was more vibrant than a red and white pole in a Venetian canal on a gloomy February morning. Suddenly, Susan sensed a summons to the shoe shop. She was lifted off her swivel chair like a marionette, her limbs with steel cores being drawn down the stairs to street level by the magnetic force of retail promise.

    People stared as she strode along the pavement. She tried to lean forward, to fall into step with her legs and to appear natural. The shoe shop window almost blinded her with its glare. Before she knew it, Susan was sitting on the stool with the patent red shoe in hand, asking for it in a size 6. Sometimes, you have to resist and be prudent; at others the figures just stack up.

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  34. Being a nurse is hard.The blisters on the old lady have turned gangrene and need dressing daily. She is so grateful for my care, so forgiving in her pain.

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  35. The blisters make walking agony. She wishes she wasn't vain, that she wore flat shoes, stomped happily. Then she looks down and sees the red sequin flash. Home, she sighs.

    Coming second in the Judy Garland Lookalike competition wasn’t just a disappointment, it was an insult. Meet Me In St Louis Louise had won. Louise, her rival for 4 years, openly gloated right in front of her, and the whole horrible night left a bitter taste on her tongue.

    Louise had undergone surgery to look like Judy. Surely the new pixie nose and cupid lips couldn’t win her the prize if the lips and nose and the hair weren’t really hers.

    The judges thought differently.

    Looking like someone takes dedication and effort, but the raw materials should be right too. Jane was born looking like Judy. She grew up looking like Judy and she idolised Judy as an adult, carefully honing her style to be just like Judy’s. That prize should have been her’s.

    On the other hand, Louise had simply made herself look like Judy. The idolization came first, the transformation later.

    On the way home Jane wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t looked the way she did. Would she still have loved Judy Garland? If she hadn’t had thick brown hair, full red lips, a snub nose and big brown eyes, would she still have longed to be like her idol?

    The idea disturbed her. Her flat was covered in memorabilia, posters, photos; everything homage to Judy. What would her life have been like without the obsession, the copy catting?

    She stopped and looked at herself in a shop window. Dorothy. Blue pinafore, ankle socks, red ribbon. A tear fell.

    She took off the ruby slippers and stuck them in a litter bin and went home.

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  36. There is no place like home, she thinks. She waits for the ruby slippers to send her home, like the Witch promised. But nothing happens. For she is home already.

    Jamieson Wolf
    jamiesonwolf@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  37. Adults--we whine too much.

    "I work standing on my feet all day!
    This blister is killing me! I must sit."

    Yet sitting gets us nowhere.

    Be a baby--crawl.

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  38. Every day, she was struck by the following question:

    " Should I or should I not wear high-heeled shoes tonight?"
    And the answer is: "No, most probably not."

    Flat shoes were necessary because her feet were mutilated with blisters, strange, bony nodules, corns, and chronic inflammatory problems. Podiatrists worldwide recommended flat shoes, even "corrective" shoes, suggesting that continual foot abuse could result in what is known as " pre-senile amputations”.
    She never trusted podiatrists. Worse, surgeons warned that
    she would be a candidate for the first bilateral foot
    transplant before the age of 20.

    Her parents threatened to hospitalize her in a psychiatric hospital if she continued to mutilate her feet. The school principal suspended her for disobeying the flat-shoe rule, claiming that she was the only student in the entire student body who wore high-heels to class. Later, a dog bit her foot, attracted by the scent.

    Finally, an intervention occurred. The parents dug up a
    minister they had never met; the minister
    dragged in a sixty year old wrestler, named Ogg, and Ogg
    convinced the high school biology teacher, Mr. Frott, to intervene;
    Mr. Frott brought a jar of old amputated feet, soaked in formaldehyde; finally, Damien Hirst, the contemporary British artist, who had just completed his formaldehyde- with- cow parts- installation, appeared, though it was later surmised that Hirst only made an appearance so
    he could convince Mr. Frott the value of amputated feet as art.

    But the real question remains:

    “Should I or should I not wear my high-heeled shoes tonight?”
    And the answer is, “No, most probably not, though I shall.”

    lee g.
    email: leekelleymd@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  39. Every day, she was struck by the following question:

    " Should I or should I not wear high-heeled shoes tonight?"
    And the answer is: "No, most probably not."

    Flat shoes were necessary because her feet were mutilated with blisters, strange, bony nodules, corns, and chronic inflammatory problems. Podiatrists worldwide recommended flat shoes, even "corrective" shoes, suggesting that continual foot abuse could result in what is known as " pre-senile amputations”.
    She never trusted podiatrists. Worse, surgeons warned that
    she would be a candidate for the first bilateral foot
    transplant before the age of 20.

    Her parents threatened to hospitalize her in a psychiatric hospital if she continued to mutilate her feet. The school principal suspended her for disobeying the flat-shoe rule, claiming that she was the only student in the entire student body who wore high-heels to class. Later, a dog bit her foot, attracted by the scent.

    Finally, an intervention occurred. The parents dug up a
    minister they had never met; the minister
    dragged in a sixty year old wrestler, named Ogg, and Ogg
    convinced the high school biology teacher, Mr. Frott, to intervene;
    Mr. Frott brought a jar of old amputated feet, soaked in formaldehyde; finally,
    Damien Hirst, the contemporary British artist, who had just completed
    his formaldehyde- with- cow parts- installation, appeared, though
    it was later surmised that Hirst only made an appearance so
    he could convince Mr. Frott the value of amputated feet as art.

    But the real question remains:

    “Should I or should I not wear my high-heeled shoes tonight?”
    And the answer is, “No, most probably not, though I shall.”

    She kept repeating:

    “No, most probably not, though I shall.”
    “No, most probably not, though I shall.”
    “No, most probably not, though I shall.”
    “No, most probably not, though I shall,
    and I will.”

    ReplyDelete

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