Flash Fiction Exchange - November Rain

We decided to use song titles these next couple of months - but they had to have the month in the title. There are a whole lot of December songs, not so many November - but, in the case of November Rain, it seems pretty appropriate here in Vancouver, because it's raining and raining and raining some more.

Here's my version of November Rain - Lisa's will run on November 24.

Enjoy.
Kate

I look like a clown.

The November rain turns my carefully straightened auburn hair to a fuzzy ball of Little Orphan Annie curls and my tanned skin to fish white. I shouldn’t wear flaming red lipstick in November, but I can’t help myself. And I shouldn’t wear my wellies, either, but I do. I’m encouraged to be eccentric but I don’t trust that encouragement.

It’s hard work keeping up my image as a dancer, especially when my body wasn’t built – or trained - to be one. My creators built me Ford tough, they just never expected I’d end up on a world where toughness – at least toughness of my sort – wasn’t required. And I never expected to be abandoned here.

But I’ve fallen in love with this world and with ballet and I’ll do whatever it takes to stay here mostly because they truly don’t care if my hair springs out or if I wear my wellies. They’re just delighted to have a woman who has the strength of a man, the body of a cheetah, the face of an angel and the endurance of a Clydesdale.

But I work hard at looking as much like a woman as I can because, on my own world, I’m neither. I look at those stick thin ballerinas and I want, more than anything else, to be just like them. I know I could starve myself to death and still never have their beautiful bodies but I keep trying, turning on my stealth mode so I can follow them, see what they do when they’re not in the studio.

I’ve learned a lot from following these women. I’ve learned about drugs and alcohol. About men and sex. Bulimia and anorexia nervosa. And I’ve learned about death, something unique to humans.

This November, in the rain, I’m going to experience every one of these. And I’ll end with death. I can hardly wait.