Child: Goddess: Sister
I stare at my birth mark - my imperfection - with the ferocity of a tiger. An animal I have yet to see or hear in my lifetime, but one so formidable that if I can capture some of its greatness, I know I’ll have the strength to perform miracles.
I try not to blink as this will break the connection, but after a while my focus dims and the dark stain the size of a coin on the inside of my wrist appears to move. I imagine it getting bigger rather than shrinking like I want it to. It stretches and curls like a water snake up the length of my right arm until it circles my neck like a noose. I turn my face upwards and close my eyes.
“Go. Please go.”
Any visible marks on the skin will be frowned upon in the selection.
Fly on the wall
The young always arrive first, racing through the seconds of their life, flashy and fluttery as birds. They find enough time to glance in confusion at a spot just above my head – maybe it’s where the sun should have been – and they are genuinely confused by its absence. They fly in all directions to form gossipy groups in front of the surfers and swimmers. I curse and roll the foam of my eye, while they gush over the muscle and sinew on display elsewhere, comparing it unfavourably to their own.
A procession of ageing comes next. Red-faced men, straining at the waistband of their middle years, spend hours staring into grainy black and whites. I take no pleasure in their smiles and wistful mutterings since they are never directed at me. If they detect my presence at all they recoil with the force of a fired gun, and so I stretch the gash of my mouth a little wider for them to see inside.
I have noted that women enjoy seascapes the most. I watch their faces moving closer together, until their voices can barely be heard.
“It reminds me of my marriage,” whispers one.
Her companion tilts her head to one side. “Torrid and stormy?”
“Bleak and fathomless,” the first corrects, and they both look a little harder at the individual strokes that make up the whole, their eyes becoming slits.
Beginnings
The first time I saw Eleanor Capriccio she was dancing. Eyes half-closed, arms in the air swaying like she could feel the music, even though none played. On top of the roof of the old boatshed, a group of kids from our year watched her as if there was nothing else they should be doing. As if school hadn’t started.
Loose from its burgundy ribbon, her hair hung wet with sea spray, and as she turned droplets of water fell in circles upon the watchers. She was quite beautiful of course, but it wasn’t this that made me stop. Our school is full of beautiful girls. They grow and bloom in sweet-smelling groups like frangipani flowers, each one you meet more perfectly formed than the last. There was an energy about her. Even Logan James, the scowling Adonis was stilled by it (an event I’d never witnessed before). I think she saw me too after a while, as I’d crept away from the shaded path I usually follow, one that keeps me out of the sun. She paused for just a moment and smiled in my direction, and the spell was broken.