You don't want to find a rude wrinkle.

Submitted into Contest #217 in response to: Write a story about two characters who like each other but don’t get a happily-ever-after.... view prompt

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Romance Sad Funny

He thinks of me with sad things.
That's why he doesn't even look at the homeless people in the neighborhood or the abandoned dogs anymore, and when he goes to the movies he leaves a little before the melancholic moment begins. But what he finds most difficult is to stop listening to Pornography by The Cure.

One afternoon, when we started our courtship, I asked him why he liked that record so much and he answered: "It has a wonderful power", he looked at my face without any astonishment, I think he expected me to ask a question. And he counterattacked: "If at the beginning of the album you were happy, you will end up feeling sad; and if you listen to it when you are sad, it makes you even more sad, with the risk of committing suicide". Obviously, I asked him who would like to be sad on purpose: "Desperate poets and those who have had their hearts broken".

It's not that he doesn't want to think about me. I know he does, and he does, even if he thinks he doesn't. Why did I stop loving him?
One afternoon, in that brief space when men close their eyes to rest, I discovered a line on his face as in the wrong place and I wanted to erase it with my finger. And I discovered that it wasn't just any wrinkle, but that it was deep, and that it wouldn't go anywhere.

And in a stupid little squeaky voice, he said, "Hi, baby."

Of course, I panicked, jumped back with a suddenness that caused me to hurt Diego. I heard a yelp from him, and an "Ouch!" from the wrinkle, and then his laugh. Only those who have heard a wrinkle's laugh will know that it is a cross between a gnashing of teeth, a hysterical person, and the voice of whoever gets on your nerves the most. "Look at the baby, she doesn't like wrinkles. Poor thing, she doesn't know that in a couple of years the queen will have little wrinkles too, on her face, on her neck, all over her little body." I thought I heard him smack his lips.

I ran out of Diego's house without giving him any explanation. I began to think about our age difference, it wasn't really that much, I was 24 and he was 30. I began to dream that he was rotting and that he wanted to infect me. I know, I am a person with horrible thoughts, but they are things I could not avoid. Have you had those thoughts too?

It was around that time that I discovered that skin is also a language.

Diego was perfect, until his wrinkle began to speak. Could it be that the skin is in charge of telling our true feelings?

Well, the next time I looked Diego in the face, and I think it was the last time, his wrinkle told me: "Hey baby, I'm glad you came back, I knew you liked it wrinkly, you know what they say, the more texture the better it feels".

"Uhg!", I felt bad, I wanted to slap him, but I just let out a "You disgust me!" I don't know what Diego must have said, because there was more and more wrinkle and less him.

"What, didn't you know that mature men are handsome because of their wrinkles? Ya, accept that you love it and let's go dark so you can feel what is rich."

The three voices, Diego, me and the wrinkle, no, no, no, no, me, Diego and the wrinkle, because I can't be near her even in prayer, swirled in an incommunicable circle.

"You disgust me, stop talking to me!", "Don't you love me anymore?", "No", "But a few minutes ago you said you loved me?", "Ya, come and give me a little kiss", "You disgust me" "What's that you have on your face? Is it a cute little wrinkle? Haha", "Idiot", "But if I love you, at least explain me", "If you stay, I'll eat you", "No!". I ran away again, shouting "You disgust me, you disgust me".

Diego called me right away, he looked for me at my house, at first I hid, but he was very persistent. One night I arrived and found him in the dark on my porch, I didn't turn off the car, I kept driving without looking at him. I drove around the neighborhood for a while. When I came back I thought I wouldn't find him, but there he was. It was too late at night to escape again. The first one to greet me was the wrinkle. I shouted, "Shut up!" and he started laughing, I think that's what he liked to do best. Diego said to me, "But, I came to talk, I think that's the least I deserve", "Sure, excuse me" I said without looking him in the face. I let him talk. He told me all the reasons why we should give each other a chance, he promised me things, and asked me to tell him the truth. And I replied, "I don't love you anymore, stop thinking about me," and I ran to the bathroom, to vomit, to cry, to look at my face in fear of finding a wrinkle.

I knew he would give up, because he sat on the porch for a long time, I listened to his wrinkle encouraging him, inviting him to look for "mamacitas" in Hong Kong. I don't think Diego could listen to his wrinkle. Between the curtains and with the light off I spied on him, waiting for him to leave, and in the end he did so silently, contemplating the road. I never saw him again.

Since then I have stopped looking at myself in the mirror, I have put matte paper on the windows so as not to look at myself and not to find a marked line on my face. However, I have started to hear it, and to feel it right in the middle of my eyes. She speaks to me when I am about to talk to a boy: "That one over there I want him to suck me off. I run to the bathroom and she fills me with royal jelly creams, hyaluronic acid, but she laughs and warns "Soon we will be more, we will be many, in the eyes, in the corner of the lips, in the forehead, in the ass".

September 22, 2023 20:25

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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