Glitter
Fiction // short story about the mysteries we invent to feel sparkly and seen
“You have glitter on your face.”
It had been a while since I’d been on a date. This was my first proper one since I moved to the city a month ago. I don’t count those illicit lunches, dinners, and drinks where you paid or offered to and I accepted or refused with a head shake and a red face. I moved here for work, some shitty gallery had a connection with a friend of mine from college and I was willing to live frugally to do cheap work someplace new. I’d resisted library school because I once had grander academic visions, and I had to find back ways into collections work somehow. So I did the job of an archivist for 75% of the pay and subleased from my jet-setting Internet friend, dreamgirl80, whose studio apartment in Chinatown was rent stabilized. She was cutting me a deal because I had agreed to feed her snake.
My date, l00king4valor, pointed to his cheek to illustrate where I should reach on my own. I already knew there was glitter on my face. I kept finding it on my hands and skin, under my fingernails where I scratched it off my face along with my concealer, leaving fresh pink lines like tear tracks. If this was the second date, he might’ve reached toward me with an open hand like he was testing the friendliness of a neighbor’s dog. If this was the third date, he might’ve smiled and pressed his finger to where the silver fleck shimmered, feeling the heat of my face for the first time and transferring the glitter to his skin. Valor would probably quickly rid himself of it by rubbing his hands on his jeans. There wouldn’t be a second or third date. He didn’t like me very much. I mimicked his motion and pointed to my face: “Here?”
I didn’t know where the glitter was coming from and I worried it was spreading. At first it was only appearing on my skin, but eventually it started to transfer. One night as I was feeding Cannonball, dreamgirl80’s illegally acquired ball python, I noticed the thawed mouse I had prepared shone under the enclosure lights. I retrieved the mouse before Cannonball could strike and looked closer. Its fur was free of sparkles, but when I pet it, I saw that its skin was silver, and flaked off at my touch like scales. Around its eyes, metallic teardrops clung to white translucent fur. I could no longer feed the mouse to Cannonball (if she died I’d lose the killer apartment deal) and somehow I knew I was to blame for its curious transformation. I went to the kitchen and covered my hands in seran wrap to prepare a second rodent, a shoddy solution. My hands felt like thawing chicken in the thin plastic, and I thought what an insulting way to keep a carcass.
Around the time the glitter started to appear, I stopped sleeping well. I slept a lot, 12, 14 hours a day, but still woke up exhausted. Through the night I’d find myself suddenly awake, sitting up, or contorted, holding myself, tears around my eyes and a dry mouth. I always woke up feeling abandoned even when I was in my own bed with the fan humming white noise and no shadows lurking like bodies in my room. When I was awake, I wanted to be asleep. The world felt heavy and so, very practically, I wanted to use its weight for something useful. I could never remember my dreams either, though I knew I was having them. I’d wash my body in the evening, silver in the drain, and wake up at three am with a headache and glitter on my palms. It began to affect work too, I had to wash my hands multiple times a day to keep the glitter off while I handled documents and catalogued material. I became a conservation risk. My boss hadn’t noticed yet, the glitter or the exhaustion. She was an older lady and she didn’t care about certifications or proper archival practice or paying her employees a living wage, which worked out mostly in my favor so I didn’t push the last thing. As long as I produced a few boxes of organized material a week she didn’t bother me, so when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer I started sleeping in the basement at work to prepare for dates.
“You got it,” my date reassured me after an overzealous reaction, wherein I probably rubbed off most of what made me beautiful. I could see concealer and blush alongside the shimmery spots on my leather-clad finger. Thanks, I said, and smiled in a resigned way, which he picked up on, because he asked if I’d like another drink, which I didn’t but I said yes anyway. There wouldn’t be a second date because I wasn’t really ready to date (anyone but you) yet. “Why the gloves?” He asked when he returned with more wine. I looked down at my hands smothered in brown leather riding gloves. This was a question I wasn’t ready to answer for anyone but you dear reader, and you, dear lover. The answer was, of course, the glitter.
L00king4valor walked me to the corner and waited with me at the bus stop. It was drizzling by then and, coming from Los Angeles, I wasn’t yet used to carrying an umbrella with me, so I shared his. He smoked a cigarette and blew the smoke into my hair. He was taller than you. There wouldn’t be a second date because I was boring that night. My hands sweat in the leather riding gloves but it meant I could bum a hit of his cig without worrying about its stain on my fingers. I didn’t have to worry about covering the world with beautiful plastic shards either. The practical answer was of course that the glitter came from something else, that it transferred to me, but at this point I was convinced I had done something and was being cosmically punished in the dream world. My bus came around the time it was supposed to and he held the umbrella out so I could enter the bus dry, while the rain dampened his head and coat. We waved goodbye and I fell asleep with my head on the rattling window.
I dreamed I was in your old Nissan sedan. We were still friends and you complimented me on my glittery eyeshadow and noticed I had done something new with my hair. I looked at you closely and your skin shone like tiny silver scales. I thought it looked strange, but I wanted this to be real so I looked to the road. The world vibrated unnaturally. I ignored every inconsistency. I had the reality I wanted to believe. You reached across the console and put your hand on my thigh. I took it in mine and you recoiled, leaving shards of reflective glass embedded in my skin. I looked back to you. Silver sloughed off of you, revealing a body of light to bright to bear, so I replaced you with an imaginary version that told me that I was special.
I met my best friend, iloveyoufornow for breakfast the next day. She wanted to hear about my date and I about her job hunt. New York is a brutal place to make art world connections if you aren’t wealthy or ivy alum. I bought her a coffee and told her I had another dream that I couldn’t remember, this time on the bus after my date. She knew about the glitter and the paranoia and the broken heart and asked if wearing the gloves were helping. I don’t know, I told her, mostly they just make me feel more guilty. She nodded and we switched the conversation to her applications and interviews. While she spoke emphatically about the state of arts employment in major cities, I pulled my makeup bag from my purse and set it on the table. Glitter was everywhere and I sighed. “Rock,” she said and pointed at my bag. “It’s your eyeliner.” Sure enough, the metallic coating of my brown eyeliner had large patches missing, and pieces of glitter stuck to my other products. It was on my hands again, plastered where I made contact.
WE SEE WHAT WE WANT TO SEE, TELL OURSELVES IT MEANS WHAT WE NEED IT TO, CONVINCE OURSELVES OF SIGNIFICANCE, ALL TO FEEL THAT THE SADNESS, THE GRIEF, THE LONELINESS HAS PURPOSE, THAT THE CHAOS OF THE UNIVERSE IS REALLY A COSMIC PATTERN WE ARE CENTERED IN.
With the mystery solved, my only remaining option was to take accountability.
this was good, thank you
Ugh I love this so much