Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

a woman, alone, nameless, any ordinary woman, and this woman enters a department store from the street, tired, hot, her hair windblown, looking very mortal, her face perhaps just a tad more visible than she would like, and in order to reach the cosmetics counter she has to pass a deliberately disorienting prism of mirrors and lights and perfume-scents which cumulatively suggest to her that she isn’t all she could be, so by the time she reached the counter she feels old and ugly, then uglier still as she looks across the counter and sees that it is staffed by ranks of angels—seraphim and cherubim—perfect young faces on perfect young bodies, backlit, ethereal, programmed for paradise, and the woman places her hand on the cool glass, looking down at heaven in a tube, in a jar, under the lid of a compact or on the tip of an eye-liner, and when she looks up to the angelic faces behind the counter, hoping for understanding, for some moment of communion, she sees a line of round, unmerciful mirrors, each reflecting her own face in all its imperfection back at her, larger and in harsher light, so flawed and shut out from the paradise on the other side of the counter;

whirling, she became:

two women simultaneously; one, in her late thirties, crossing the street with her face buried in a book, just like Amanda in her high school days when she walked home alone every day, but this woman looked as if she were more interested in keeping her eyes averted from the world passing by than in paying attention to the words on the page; the second woman, much shorter than the first, a good forty pounds heavier and ten years older, carried a shoulder bag filled with books, only the expression on her face—part impatience, part resignation, and part longing—betrayed that she wished she had the nerve to walk with her face buried in a book, but then what would she have to look forward to once she got home? And as they passed one another, both looked up and slowed their steps, just for a moment, because suddenly one was thinking Is that what I’ll look like in ten years? while the other thought My God, is that what I used to look like when I was that age? then the crosswalk sign changed and both, Before and After, hurried along, shaken, rushing along to the same plans in the same kind of house where each had lived similar evenings for longer than either wanted to admit;

spiraling, she became:

a woman named Rosemary, married for twenty-two years to a man she knew had been having an affair with a much younger and prettier woman for at least a year, probably longer, so this Rosemary found herself sitting, nervous, in the waiting room of a plastic surgeon’s office where she planned to have a little liposuction, a bit of a face-lift, and perhaps, if she could afford it, a little breast augmentation, some Inflate-a-Boob so maybe he’d take notice of her once again;

spinning, she became:

a patchwork quilt of wrinkles and cuts and swollen bruises that was once Joyce’s face, and Joyce carefully, with trembling hands, washed away the blood, wincing, her boyfriend’s words, so much more violent than his fists, replaying in her mind: “Why aren’t you beautiful? You’re not even pretty!” and she wept because she knew it was true, she wasn’t pretty and really, really wished she were, because then Kevin wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with her, and maybe she ought to break it off with him but who else would have her? Maybe getting hit once in a while after he’d had a few too many was the price she had to pay for not being lonely in bed at night;

mingling, she became:

the secret, embarrassed fantasy of so many plain-faced ones: Changed into a very beautiful and glamorous woman, closing their eyes and watching this other beautiful woman who used to be them from another place outside of themselves, seeing her so clearly, so vividly, and trying hard not to shout, “Enjoy it! Enjoy it while you can, you deserve it!” all the time knowing this other woman isn’t them, not really, it was only a silly schoolgirl fantasy;

accepting, she became:

the echo of voices, chanting: “It isn’t me...not myself...not this body of mine, not this fat/sagging/shapeless/old/nothing-special body...it’s her , a someone else ...and that face!... a face to die for, not like this one, so ordinary, forgettable...removed from me...from fantasy...a beautiful woman...and I hate myself for feeling this way...not me...not myself... her...someone else... hate myself for feeling this way...why am I nothing if not thin/beautiful/young/without a man?...but, still...

...still I shout...

...enjoy it...

...enjoy it while you can...

...enjoy it while you can you deserve it...

...still...”

…lost and lonely, Amanda felt herself being wrenched backward, down through the ages, through the infinite allness of want and desire and isolation and dreams and shames and moments of pride and self-worth and meaning that Woman had shrunk Herself into so as to be human, raw with pain yet drenched in wonder, and she stretched herself under the weight of this knowing, her eyes staring toward the truth that was her soul, her whole body becoming involved in drawing it back into her in one breath, and in the moment before she came away whole, clean, and filled with glory, in the millisecond before she found herself once again standing in her bathroom staring at the reflection in the mirror, in that brief instant of eternity that revealed itself to her just this once before her final metamorphosis took place, she broke into a language few could understand, speaking of herself and her sisters as zealots entering a church resurrected on the sight of pagan temples called Beauty and Ugliness and Plainness, a novice in the inner sanctum, knowing at whose altar she knelt, to what god she prayed, and in this communion between herself and her sisters she knew all of Woman, and loved them, and thanked them as a thread of knowledge wound itself around a certain part of her consciousness and Shekinah whispered a last answer to a final question—

—and Amanda, awakened to the majesty that was always without and within her, knew exactly, precisely, with a strength of certainty most people know only once in their entire lives, what had happened to her, and why.

She looked at her sisters, crowding around her; so lonely-eyed and plain-faced and in desperate need of one moment of glory, a moment like she’d experienced tonight—and to hell with the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach when it was over—but could not find the words to articulate.

Her sisters, standing there with their jars in their hands. “You’re so beautiful,” said one of them. “Like a picture by Michelangelo.”

Then held out her empty jar.

Amanda reached up and took hold of her father’s straight-razor, opened it, and stood in awe at how exquisitely the blade gleamed in the light. Her sisters held their breath. Every moment of glory comes with its consequences. “I love you,” she whispered to her sisters. “And I give myself to you.” “Amen,” they whispered, tears of gratitude in their eyes. She placed the razor against her lips and began.

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