A cautionary tale with a modern twist?
Written by:
Jolene Rice
Michael Raven
With anger and disgust flowing through her, Judy sat at the table looking at this bottle that cost her a lot of work. And a rat. A fleeting thought raced across her mind to pour it down the sink. She stared at the sink, then back at the bottle. As if it had been written with disappearing ink, ‘drink me’, appeared. Was it really there? She ran her finger over the words to make sure. Yes, it was really there. “Drink it you fool.” In a moment of courage, it was gone.
With a start, she woke on the kitchen floor. The last thing she remembered was drinking the potion. Sun was pouring through her tiny kitchen window. This was going to be a suck ass day.
As she peeled herself out of the floor, her phone rang. She was unable to get a single word out before her mom started cooing, chatting a thousand words a minute. This woman that she hadn’t talked to in over a year, was now talking her ear off.
Her mother wanted to meet for breakfast. The restaurant was close enough for Judy to walk. As she stepped outside her apartment building, the sun seemed to shine brighter. Everyone stopped as she walked past. This made her highly uncomfortable. Checking her reflection in a store window, there wasn’t any toilet paper hanging from her pants. Her hair wasn’t doing anything wild. She jumped as a man plastered his face to the other side of the window. “Hey, baby.” He hissed.
At the restaurant, she got “you look amazing” from her mom.
Other than that, her words were lost. They meant nothing. Her mouth was moving. After they were seated, Judy looked at her mom. Still trying to understand what she was saying. “Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
A scraping noise pulled her attention to the other patrons in the restaurant. Everyone seemed to be sitting a little closer to her. No, couldn’t be.
As time passed, people started lining up behind her, everywhere she walked. The park. The grocery. People would offer to let her in front of them. Phone numbers were being thrown at her. The sky rained flowers.
This is not what she wanted. Or at least, she wasn’t sure.
Crossing the street, Judy stopped at a stop sign. Horns honked. People whistled. All the people standing behind her pretended like they weren’t looking at her. But they were. She smiled a wicked grin. Oh yes, this Is what I wanted. She thought; she was going to have fun with this! Winking to herself, holding her head higher than she ever had, muttered to herself, “I’m going to make the Count proud.”
The End
