drabble: 1. headaches and butterflies
Headaches and butterflies dissolve with Tylenol and alcohol but the gut-wrenching ache that plagues her every night wallows in the pit of her stomach, taunting the prospect of medication and always sliding this way and that, just out of reach from the spread-out fingers of her pills. She swallows and taps her feet nervously as fingers brush against her face, grazing her skin as whispers from above deliver oily flattery while each curl of hair is tucked precisely into place.
"You're gorgeous, darling," someone sighs behind her, a hand curving round to perfect the last dab of mascara. Her eyelashes flutter as she looks up at her reflection in a half-fractured mirror, the product of some starlet's hissy fit in this very same chair. Is this who I am? she asks herself, taking in the fur stole from a murdered animal in Siberia, diamonds glistening at the cusp of her throat the product of a poor man's work in Sierra Leone with a whip centered on his back. Is this who I've become?
Her strictly engineered entrance plays perfectly to key, a rhythm of lub-dub bursting in her ribcage as blind hands guide her to the foot of the stairs, bright camera flashes already conducting a melody of sound. "Smile, dear," comes a voice from the side, someone she doubts she knows or recognises. She sets a plastic smile upon her face, this face which has launched a thousand magazine covers, and a last-minute spray of cloying perfume hits her like a tidal wave (I don't want this I don't want this I don't want this - but everybody wants this) --
She is terrified.
Four-inch heels step gracefully onto the stage, and the ice shatters.