Seems like she's every where now and we try to stiffle the living memory of her. Selfishness prevails.
Red Dress
The very first time she saw it hanging loosely on the shoulders of a petite mannequin in the middle of the store, she knew she wanted it. Nothing in her life was ever as clear as that want for the red dress. She didn’t know why and didn’t care why, but she just knew that she wanted it more than anything. Even looking at the price, with all its zeroes, didn’t dull her want. It was too strong. The first time her fingers brushed against the soft fabric and eyes took in the play of shades, there was no singular doubt in her mind that she was meant to have that red dress. So she bought it.
The cashier looked at her through the thickly dusted eyelashes, a little sneer on the cheaply painted lips, but she couldn’t do anything. This mutt would get the dress, where a beauty like her would have to gladly wrap it up and say ‘have a nice day’ through the clenched teeth. The woman never hated her life more than when the red fabric was hidden by the card board box and taken away in hard-worn beat up fingers of the outsider. The woman only asked herself why.
But she didn’t care because she got what she wanted even though that something depleted her savings account considerably. She’ll get more work eventually and replenish it. The red dress was one in a million, but money was a thing easily earned by the young. There was no problem there.
She ran to her apartment, in the down town area of the crumbling city through the old neighborhoods, never noting the increasing number of boarded up windows or broken glass on the cracked asphalt or eyes of stray cats curiously following the dashing young creature. Up to the fourth floor and down right in the hall she flew, her thickly muscled legs carrying her few steps at a time. Her eyes caught the flicker of fading scratched metal on the wooden door with a number and a letter to remind her that she lived in 48 C, like she always lived as long as she could remember. Bursting through the door, she ran for the bedroom, fingers nervously tucking on the strings of the box. It fell away noiselessly, tumbling to the rotting wooden floor, curling around nothing. She jumped on the bed, tearing away at the light feathery paper to see her prized possession, the red dress. She felt her heart thump. Hands gingerly cupped the material and pressed it against her flushed cheek and for the first time in many years, Kaso allowed herself to cry.
She vowed to never leave it behind.