Everything seemed to slow down to a frustrating crawl. I became hyper-aware of myself, making comfort a luxury of the past. Every fault of mine amplified a million times. The lighting was bright— too bright, like a spot light directed on me. My face was afire as I slowly rose from my seat.
Every eye was on me. I could have heard a pin drop, but instead, all I heard was the pathetic sound of my breathing, reminding me that I was alive. No escape from this. No sudden death, no relieving heart attack could rescue me from this turn of fate. I wished this was, instead, one of those startling life-like dreams that attack once in a while, waking the dreamer in a cold sweat and leaving them unable to sleep the rest of the night.
I made my way down the aisle, each step weighing more than the previous. It was like walking through deep mud. Each step sinking a little deeper in the goo the longer it was submerged in it. Each step was bringing me closer to sinking over my head. At the end of the aisle I lifted my eyes to meet the unwavering gaze of my tormentor, the one who had called my name.
She was a flame of red hair, burning like the embarrassment inside me. Red like the color of blood. Her small size made her look harmless. I knew better. Her pouty lips were curled into a venomous smirk.
“Jaleena,” she repeated.
I stood below her, awaiting my fate.
“Your position,” she asserted while handing me a crumpled up piece of paper. As I opened the piece, I already knew what it said. One of the few positions that was not announced. Lucky me, I had been chosen for the one I wanted least. I felt the blood start to drain from my face, but I didn’t know where it could go because my heart felt empty. This one piece of paper had confirmed the worst of my fears.
“Go with Thomas. He will show you all you need to know, and the instruments you will use,” she said with no remorse, determined to ruin another child’s life.
A man appeared, and I followed him with as much ignorance as a duck waddling after its mother. He was only a few inches or so taller than me, with a sprinkling of gray peppering in walnut colored hair that matched mine. He glanced down at me for a second, and his dark-framed glasses magnified his sympathetic jade eyes. They reminded me of water that looked black from a distance, only to turn out a clear green on closer inspection, darkened by depth. It was then that I realized this man was barely thirty. Sleepless nights, long hours, and the stress of his work overwhelmed his once youthful face. The faint lines on his forehead and around his mouth were testimony of it. I wondered if my face would match his in a couple of years.
He brought me into a dimly-illuminated room that was lit solely from one bright operation area in the corner. The operation area was to be my new workplace. The place was set up with military precision. A mechanical clicking noise emanating from below one machine immediately set me on edge.
“Perfection. Perfection is attainable. You will be creating beauty.”
I looked away in disgust. How could I ruin a person’s soft natural beauty and create an unrecognizable combination of sharp angles and dramatic features that distorted the original masterpiece? It was like plucking a delicate lily, fresh with dew, slicing the petals in half because whole petals were “too plump,” plucking off the stamens because they were “too fuzzy,” and dipping the rest of the disfigured bloom into a bucket of white paint to mute the blush of pink because “a blush is a blemish.”
“Unless, of course, you want to waste your skill, let down the human race, and eventually die in a hole,” Thomas continued after noticing my averted face.
If there had been a smile, it had long since disappeared by the time I glanced up. For some reason, I had a hard time imagining a smile on his face. I was pretty sure he didn’t know how. I tried to convince myself he was joking. His gaze was impenetrable as he searched my face for the reassurance that was not there. Maybe it was the fact he was giving me a choice, when I really didn’t have one that made me finally reply, “Yeah. I’ll do it.”
Our first victim was a young woman in her early twenties. Her face was both familiar and forgettable. Wispy, light brown hair, hazel eyes, round face, and the stocky build of an athlete.
Thomas went straight to work, not missing a beat. He rarely spoke, but rather expected me to watch and learn. As I absorbed his every motion, I realized he probably chose this lady because of the minimal alterations to her body. She was fit, and her face had a good base.
He started with her face, as it would be the most time-consuming. A slice here, a slice there. He stretched her skin more tightly across her face, transforming the pleasant round face to a defined one with prominent cheekbones. She looked too severe and sculpted, like a statue.
As Thomas finished with her lips, I noticed they were inflated to twice their original size which made me wonder why he bothered whitening the teeth underneath. They were barely visible. I watched as he altered her hazel eyes into a striking blue with a dark ring encircling the lighter, sparkling sapphire. I was surprised at the thought that broke through the wall that I had struggled to keep up. That’s beautiful.
Every girl I knew would have killed to look so perfect. Instead of seeing it as ruining the beauty they already possessed, they thought of it as a chance of a lifetime to outshine the looks of everyone else. I was probably the only one that was even slightly against the idea. Now I was joining their ranks. I hated myself for it.
I was glad when Thomas finally started on the body because I didn’t have to see the face. I didn’t have to think that those gorgeous eyes were an improvement. He started by taking about an inch off each of her sides. Although this woman was fit, she wasn’t thin enough for perfection. With Thomas’s precise work, she resulted in the ideal: underweight, with a tiny waist. Wasn’t something wrong with society if the sick and unattainable were the beautiful? When the young girls would look at women such as this one, and try to achieve her beauty?
“Hey, why don’t you finish with her hair?” Thomas suggested as he got up from his work.
“What color?”
“Try honey blond.”
I took one last look at the fawn hair blowing across this woman’s face, and clicked the button to adjust the levels and colors, wondering which advertisement this photo would end up on.