* Written for a class assignment.
She is a frolicking, giggling specimen of budding girlhood – a mélange of pink silks, crinoline and lace-trimmed skirts that graze milky-white thighs as bare feet pitter-patter across well-trodden grass. Her toes are damp from the rain-soaked ground; her rain-soaked hair is plastered to her cheeks. Her fingers are stained dark brown with traces of chocolate from dessert-time encrusted under tiny, well-nibbled fingernails. Maraschino cherry-red lips are parted in a gap-toothed grin. Pearls fall from her lips in peals of merriment as she laughs at the sight of two butterflies deftly weaving their way through the grass, landing like silent helicopters upon the periwinkle blue. The sound of the mud squelching under her feet alerts the nesting blue jays to her arrival; in a series of squawks, they flutter away. She is but six, oblivious and angelic. Her eyes are lit alight as she lifts them up to the dusky sky. She exhales into the cold air, her warm breath spiraling into a white, misty swirl in the dimming twilight.
She takes a bite out of the Big Apple. An explosion of saccharine sweetness explodes within her as juice trickles out of the corner of her lip. This must be what godliness must feel like, she thinks, as her dormant eyes fly open. Her hands reach out greedily for the ostentatious multitudes laid bare before her eyes. Stepping into the piercing, white light, she feasts hungrily on knowledge as she is cleansed of her naivety. She drinks deeply from the well of disillusionment until she is devoid of emotion. It is some sort of awakening, some sort of metamorphosis. Opulence replaces simplicity, coquetry replaces innocence, and vitriol replaces affection.
She stalks the streets of the city, her stiletto heels four-inches high, drumming out an incessant beat against the concrete pavement to the endless racket of car horns and the mindless cacophony of Palm Pilot beeping dissonantly against shrill voices that scream commands into sleek silver cellular devices. Her black leather miniskirt rides up the criss-crossing weave of fishnet stockings that cut into pale skin. Her toes are still damp from the rain; her hair is rain-splattered as manicured fingernails in garish shades of red brush away the few errant strands that cling to her face. Her lips are twisted into an ironic smile; those mornings where every red light glints in malice and no car seems to stop at the crosswalk seem to be every morning now. She rests her eyes upon winding roads of asphalt and skyscrapers that jockey for position; her gaze sweeps past an old man squatting by Fifth Avenue, clad in a thin, greyed chemise, clutching an empty Starbucks paper cup. She is thirty-six, oblivious and apathetic. Her dull eyes drift over the daily newspaper strewn across the road, listens to the mind-numbing drone of the city bustle around her. She reaches into her mink clutch. With fumbling hands, she lights a cigarette; taking a long drag, she watches as the plume of smoke billows into the grey, smoggy sky.
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