Morphed Into Me|Candace Meredith|Fiction
I morphed there in front of him; my skin first turned to a wax so that my former self would be unrecognizable. He always said I needed to stop talking so my lips became more prominent – rounder, fuller, and red. In the sunlight my eyes turned to a gray unlike the hazel color they were and the wax looked cleaner like the shine to a bronze. My cheeks were raised and my nose became slightly sharper. I didn’t take the form of a doll in my real life – but a complicated human full of thoughts and ideas; this time I could speak of them even to nobody who was listening. I kept my plain-Jane name – it was, it is, Sarah. I am happy even as a ghost – a waxy one who has a full mouth and prominent cheek bones.
That is when I began to shine; the oppression left me bitter. It’s a shame to say that he got the best of me. I wanted to be the mermaid in someone else’s drama but in my own book I make all the rules – I morphed into the pages to become the thing I thought about most – a human morphed from clay; as the sculptor created my body I watched in awe because the curves were so unique. That is when I began to see myself a little better – in a painter’s eye. The artist was Bill or Ted, someone lacking an identity because in this scenario names are not necessary. His hands developed my breasts to be painted by the others and in the figure, I had a rump his hands wanted to touch. Bill took the gray out of my eyes with the stroke of his hand and then he was ready for the paint.
I resisted the urge to tell him You are My Creator! But I stayed in my place as he morphed my skin into a plastic sheathe and I became like a doll or a figure they gloated over – the art students who paint what the teacher sculpts. I was the model who still could not speak but from the wax-like doll I could utter a symphony with those lips, and I could taste the fun of becoming a me again, like a re-birth, like a woman who could breathe beyond the wax – in the hands of another man. I am Sarah! I said with eyes as deep as the soul – deep as the red on my lips, as vivid as the bronze of my skin, and the curves contoured beneath that mini skirt. When he created the new me I became more alive, like a gust of wind that moved my hair; she was me – a figure made of clay, painted like wax, and as I became sculpted then painted, I was re-born not just into a being but into a voice – and I could sing too, finally, because an artist shone me as everything I could be; what I already was…
Unlike he never did.
So, goodbye.
Love,
Sarah
Photo by Joeyy Lee on Unsplash
BIO
Candace Meredith earned her Bachelor of Science degree in English Creative Writing from Frostburg State University in the spring of 2008. Her works of poetry, photography and fiction have appeared in literary journals Bittersweet, The Backbone Mountain Review, The Broadkill Review, In God’s Hands/ Writers of Grace, A Flash of Dark, Greensilk Journal, Saltfront, Mojave River Press and Review, Scryptic Magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V and various others. Candace currently resides in Virginia with her son and her daughter, her fiancé and their three dogs and six cats. She has earned her Master of Science degree in Integrated Marketing and Communications (IMC) from West Virginia University.
Previous works including poetry and fiction have appeared in Backbone Mountain Review of the Western Appalachia, The Broadkill Review, a literary journal of Delaware, Anthology 17, Green Silk Journal, Saltfront of Salt Lake City, Utah and Bittersweet of Frostburg State University.
