I met Estelle Saltern in a park one morning, and though she was a stranger I intended to tell her everything about my life and how it had gone wrong. She was an old woman, this Estelle, and when I sat down beside her I first played with the frayed ends of her hair, and then I lay my head on the space where her breast once was.
She was famous for taking on the appearance of the most attractive thing around her, so soon she looked like the small pond: calm, silver and glinting. Indeed she looked so much like the pond, young children set tiny paper boats on her, and a few geese, confused, landed on her shoulders. While I talked about the father I’d hated, whose later-life care I’d neglected, Estelle Saltern slowly changed her appearance. For a few moments she resembled a newly opened orchid, but then, when a dark-haired young man entered the park, she took on his face and body for a time.
I told her my secrets as I would tell a trusted therapist and she said things like You resilient thing! You brave thing! You conscientious thing! in just the tone I craved. I wanted a reason to continue to exist, and Estelle Saltern seemed prepared to provide me with one. Her mouth when she said these things barely opened, and her hands were occupied with winding an infinite spool of blue thread.
I soon told her about the man who used to put his dick in me, until he deemed me too old. I even helped him put his dick in me! I cried, and such was Estelle’s effect on me that I could immediately see the humour in my outcry. It is the winter of your life, she giggled, and I knew it was true. I was waiting for the Chancellor to sweep me off the earth.
Did you not once find me beautiful? Did you not once find me rich? It is like I never existed.
Eventually, after I had spilled out most of my pathetic history, we said goodbye and she rolled slowly back across the park, this time resembling a wild strawberry that was part of a picnic being held by the fountain. Was there something to be learned from her alterations? I was not sure. I sat on the bench for a while, envying or dismissing other women’s bodies as they walked past. Estelle Saltern and I were lucky to live in a town of such variety. Yet I wanted to tell her how it felt like there were only young people everywhere, strolling and smoking, and somehow, even if they were meek or slender, not leaving room for anyone else.
Later, in my home, I shuddered and wept. I lay carefully on top of my quilt and touched my dirty face, my frizzy hair, my stiffening body, and I felt the familiar waves of shame and revulsion break over me. Could I rise? Could I join Estelle Saltern? And could she anoint me, and could we travel together in bodies that soon would be indistinguishable from the falling sun?