10 Minute Prompt: Wishful Lie

Her green eyes look at me, blink, look, blink. Droplets of water in her hair glitter in the quintuplet bathroom light. Her skin, ripening with fine lines, shifting pores, and eroded chicken pox scars, glows after the scrubbing in the shower. Her clavicles are drifted between shoulder and breast. I look away. She looks away. A Q-tip smooths and coaxes the wax from her ears. Another Q-tip disappears down the lint trap belly button, deeper than any she’s encountered. She brushes her teeth, always, before applying and spreading a dollop of lotion to her face. With the clean and tidy of this wiping routine she steps out of biology for a few minutes. If she does it right she can go a half day without looking like a living, growing, aging, sloughing, flowing, excreting creature.