POTN 6

POETRY  |  FICTION EXCERPT

The Ophelias

by Charlee Jacob, art by Cathy Miller Burgoyne

"Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The women will be out…"

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

I was a homely girl.

I grew up a plain woman.

They can do wonders these days, with cosmetics and cosmetic surgery. Health clubs. The right hair cut. Color analysis and designer clothing. They can take an ill-favored creature and transform her into a vision, a movie star, making the mousy bold and the inadequate abundant.

But none of these miracles prevailed with me. It’s hard to be unworkably plain in today’s world. People resent you for it. Figure it’s somehow your own fault. You become a drab, a drudge, an obvious dyke, a basket case, a bag lady and a troll.

I fell in love with a man. I fell in love with several. Of course, the feeling was never mutual, merely laughable.

I got used to it. It was okay.

I learned to avoid mirrors during the day. The reflections only reminded me of my shortcomings. Inevitably I began to cry when I saw myself.

I sneaked peeks only at night. Mirrors were different then. It was like seeing myself through veils of smoky silk, a sudden Salome. The looking glass was no longer just an identical image glaring out faultlines but a dark topaz crystal, multi-faceted, in which I was a glimmer in the jewel. I was lovely in those night mirrors. Smudged, shadowy, seeing a vague beauty as catlike and mysterious as she was obscure.

I knew from this that I was not like the other city people who were animated in their perfect forms, forces to be reckoned with. I had always felt that the Bible was wrong, that we were not made in God’s image. We were made in the day’s image. Or at least we were supposed to be, if we were living, bright, full of sunny vitality, always moving-climbing-striving-hot. That’s how those other people were, strong and solar.

But some of us were a mistake in the production. We were meant to be made in the night’s image. The special gifts we were given were all the wrong talents for day people. That nightimage was a softer glow of stars reflected in oil. It was veins full of myrrh, eyes every varying shade of moonlight from silver to eclipsed. I know that is how I was meant to be made.

When I couldn’t bear the city anymore, I moved to a small town in the hills where I hoped I would be less noticeable. It was a rustic place: no hot dance spots, no comedy clubs, no Neiman Marcus make-up counters. The people were backwoods, unsophisticated. Just Plain Folks, as the saying went. That sounded good to me. I would belong among Just Plain Folks.

Truth was, they were suspicious of strangers. I teetered on the edge of exclusion as I always had. At least they weren’t downright rude to me. They just wouldn’t look at me straight, with both eyes. As if afraid they’d catch something from me if they employed a steady gaze.

They called me a name behind my back when they figured I couldn’t hear them. Funny how folks assume that homely women are deaf, too. I was used to people and their cruel labels but in the city no one usually bothered to keep it to a whisper. But hereabouts that name was only murmured, rasped at most, until I didn’t even get it right at first. Widder, I thought they were calling me. The colloquial abuse of widow. But I had never been married much less had a husband die on me nor had I ever said anything to that effect.

Widder, muttered behind me.

One day I heard it closer, and understood that what they’d been saying was Wither.

I didn’t have any idea what that could mean. I couldn’t exactly ask, could I? Certainly not of people who wouldn’t look at me with both eyes.