Thursday, January 10, 2008

x365: 56 of 365: melba (i)

In grade nine, the cruelty of young girls reaches a point so fine that it passes into near-invisibility, and it cuts with such efficiency that you don't even know what's going on until there's blood and bits everywhere. Melba arrived with certain disadvantages: she was taller and bigger-boned than everyone else, and she hadn't learned to move her body with grace. She bumped around as if she'd been stuck together from spare parts. You could feel the contempt of the other girls like the heat on the surface of a hive of bees. I've no doubt that Melba is beautiful now.

6 comments:

Nate said...

My two best friends in the world were both exactly like this in high school. In my experience they always get funny and gorgeous.

Incidentally, is grade nine also where they pull young girls aside and teach them how to constantly belittle and deride one another? Because that's when I remember it starting.

sgazzetti said...

Your simile in the penultimate sentence is sublime.

palinode said...

nate - I recall the girls in my elementary school starting in with the evil as early as grade six. There's some hormonal clotting factor that makes them stick together. But you may be right: when the teachers take the girls aside to teach them the 'women's section' in grade 9 health, maybe it's a detailed set of instructions on being insanely nasty.

sgazzetti - Thank you. If you like, I'll mail it to you on a Saskatchewan postcard. Seriously. Send me your mailing address. palinode at gmail dot com.

Nat said...

That was beautiful. I hate how nasty we females are to each other sometimes.

Bruce Johnson said...

I am sure she is walking the runways of Paris and Prague, while her past detractors are changing diapers in their double-wide.....karma is a bitch.

palinode said...

nat - Woman-on-woman psychological is scary and discouraging to behold.

lotus07 - Absofuckinglutely.