Her arm rests at her feet on the platform. She wears the remains of tiny leather boots. She is naked except for her boots. For a hundred years she wore a Russian dancer's dress. Like dolls, she and her child were embalmed and stuffed. Stuffing kept their hirsute bodies lifelike. Her child, a boy, lived thirty-five hours. She died four days later. Four-feet-six, a marvelous hybrid of human and Orang Outan. Her skin is tea-colored, parchmentlike, mostly hairless now. There is still some hair on her forehead, patches of beard on her cheeks. The side of her face is torn and a glass eye is missing. Her child is missing. Vandals ripped open her dress and broke her baby's jaw, snapped off his arms, and pried up the nails that fixed his feet to a pedestal. He was found in a nearby ditch. Soon after, he was eaten by mice.
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This story, inspired by the afterlife of Julia Pastrana, originally appeared in KGB Bar Lit.
So much vivid brutality in such so few words. Eaten by mice!
Awfully sad & mysterious. I had to google Julia Pastrana:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pastrana
http://images.google.com/images?q=Julia+Pastrana
wow. i love this:
"Vandals ripped open her dress and broke her baby’s jaw, snapped off his arms, and pried up the nails that fixed his feet to a pedestal."
do you have more of these little flashes? 200 words or less. www.dogzplot.com
Marcy - Thanks.
Jurgen - FYI, most of those Google images are pictures of her when she was dead. Very sad and creepy.
Barry - I don't usually write flash fiction, but I'll keep you in mind if I come up with something in the future.
Wow. Wonderfully vivid.
I love the patches of beard, the mix of coarse and delicate images --- the dancer's dress, the leather boots.