'Vanity'

Inspired by Gabriel García Márquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'
As featured in panoptica magazine

She was ugly but in an unconventional way, so that the great fizzling minds of the beautiful people of Remonda were at a loss as to whether to cannonize or chastise her. Ave Anderson, in one of those rare defining moments of history where one is presented with the choice as to whether one is beautiful or not, decided on the former to the superlative degree and wore her long snowy hair in bunches with gingham ribbons plaited in. Hearts were broken, spat upon and stamped upon-O Ave great love of my soul, light of my darkest night will you not be my-in a queue that flowed every morning from her front door to the town centre. She won flowers and prizes every second of every minute for her rare and exotic form of beauty which were circumspectly flung onto a candlelit shrine in her downstairs toilet. She was invited to psychedelic parties for the young and the beautiful in aid of Help Those Less Fortunate Than Our Dear Goodselves where the gentle and sweet pulsation of the music wove a tapestry of, ohmygod, such ineffable beauty and love through the ghostly marble arches and out into cold and icy and full nights. Ave Anderson was rumoured to have descended from the Sun itself when a ray caressed an extremely fertile mountain pixie (blessed with the loveliest smile ever known to mankind) and rendered her pregnant. From all four corners of the globe, people would flock to stand in adoration of the exquisiteness of Ave's face and would create sketches and paintings of its every angle in every light. "The most wonderful thing about Ave Anderson," they would profess, "is that she doesn't even know that she is beautiful". And it was indeed true, Ave Anderson simply did not know that she was beautiful. Granted, she was told that she was all of the time, but how could Ave be expected to retain this information? Besides, there were no mirrors or reflective surfaces in Remonda. All that the beautiful people could do was rely on highly-stylized portraits and word-of-mouth to know the semblance of their visages. It was only when the gypsies arrived that the beautiful people of Remonda were able to see themselves. On a dusty yellow morning they came on camel back bearing jars and fabrics and a gilded ark that required the support of five sets of their leathery hands. The ark was set down in a dark corner that was draped with a cloak of impenetrable taciturn consecration. "Only the fairest," the gypsies stipulated, "may open the ark and take out the looking glass". A cacophonic symphony of you're beautiful and oh no no you're more beautiful saw the least obstinate, least sychophantic Ave Anderson rise triumphant. Boldly, our heroine goes forth and opens the treasure trove and with a glimmer she sees the pleasingly discordant irregularity of her features and the grace and harmony of her peoples', and she becomes conventionally ugly and so do they and so do they-

With thanks to openwalls.com for the image.