“You have an admirer, Miss Mildred!” Auntie Dot produces a letter. It’s sunshine yellow parchment sealed with green wax.
“Auntie, it’s just Charles. He writes me these once a week. Tells me of great adventure. My hand will be his and when it happens. .. All the dreadful things we will embark on. And children. Seven… with four boys and three girls.” Mildred looks hopelessly bored of it all.
Auntie looks her over. “You could do much worse. The young man has the wherewithal to travel by good means too!”
Auntie’s shadow barely clears the door before it’s snapped open.
Dear Mildred,
I have come to the conclusion you are a wax figure. I thought your long pause and quiet nature was odd. But a lady has that privilege. It’s the rather touch of your skin isn’t like other people. I have had second thoughts since I have never seen you physically move. I shall be by in a few days. If you don’t have a pulse, I’m not sure on how this whole thing can work out.
Charles
“He thinks I’m a wax figure! This is a joke! He’s toying with me. Oooohhh, you had me Mr Charles! Ha ha ha. Yes, I didn’t see that coming.” Mildred realizes the joke.
Auntie pops her head around the corner.”Everything ok?”
” He asked if I was a wax figure!” Mildred laughs through the line.
“Well, you are. Ain’t never left that chair in twenty years. You never ate. I don’t understand how you talk.” Auntie Dot brings the feather duster to clean her up.
Written as part of a challenge called Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers , details are available at https://flashfictionforaspiringwriters.wordpress.com/2016/11/28/fffaw-challenge-week-of-november-29-2016/
NIcely done. What a clever idea.
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Thank you for the kind words. It was one of those “I got nothing” things that works out
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I somehow was taken over by poetry after a,WordPress class. I think it’s my blonde brain knowing bad sentence structure appears as good poetry. 😎
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Great take! Imaginative and funny.
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Thank you very much. It really was hard to be serious with the picture
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This is great, like she is too perfect and put together to be real. It’s funny that she hadn’t moved, is she dreaming? Or because she acted so stiff and bored did she curse herself? Creative as always!
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She just always thought she was alive but never moved. Her blissful world never included her being the wax figure she was. Thank you darling. ☺
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wrong. Sorry about that. I wasn’t flying any where toward a Cautionary tale
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Loved the unique take on the prompt 🙂
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Thank you very much. It seemed like she was awful stiff and inanimate
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Ha, the picture does have this quality to it. Nice chuckle. Good one.
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Exactly! She seemed less than lively. It’s nice to take the box tear it up and think along different lines
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Hahahaha! She ended up being a wax figure and Charles is finally realizing that. LOL! This is too funny!
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You know some people are really stand-offish. Maybe they just aren’t really alive. The picture seemed like she was stiff. 🙂
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Yes, the picture does seem that way!
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Hope wax figures aren’t ticklish! Great story, nice twist (of course).
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Never thought of that! She could snap and arm off of she flinched from a tickle. I wonder if Madame Trousand would know if they are?
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Probably — Chamber of Horrors stuff for sure!
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The stuff that filled the Night Gallery or Twilight Zone.
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Too true — There is a Twilight Zone about a mannequin that comes to life in a department store — I think it might be Anne Frances.
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I vaguely remember it. Mannequins are great story subjects because they are really easy to make creepy
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True — they can be so realistic and then there are people who pose as mannequins, and mannequins who pose as people and I’m going to get confused or freaked out . . . 🙂
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They are just like us. They just have no control over their lives. Oh wait, they are just like us. 😲
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So, by that rule, they are ticklish. Watch out for feather dusters, then.
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I would think so. But I have a darkside to my writing. Maybe self fulfilling prophecy
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Best be cautious and careful, then, of what you write and what you wish for.
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“Don’t write in starlight, because the words may come out real. Don’t talk to strangers, because they’re only there to do you harm. Don’t dream of women, because they’ll only bring you down.” Ronnie James Dio. Lessons from my youth, ignored and learned again.
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Great quote — especially the opening — and a good cautionary tale. So some one can learn a lesson again — good to know — I’ve unlearned a lot of stuff I used to know I’m afraid.
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I figured I needed to make sure I was wing a couple times before briefing that Cautionary tale stuff.
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“wing”? not sure I get the context here.
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Listening to Indigo Girls:
“what makes me think I could start clean slated/the hardest to learn is the least complicated”
another lesson.
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Darling we complicate. We’re human. It’s what we do
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Ah! the witty twist at the end. Well written.
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Thank you very much for the kind words. It’s allows good to take things a different direction now and then. ☺
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Haha! She makes a pretty ornament though. Maybe he can keep her to hang his ties on. Nice story and wittily told 🙂
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She is quite decorative! She adds a bit of Victorian touch to the home. I would think he could find her useful for the ties. But the next woman in his life might find it hats to deal with him keeping her around. 🙂
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Maybe. But then. she’s no real threat, is she? Just a pretty life sized wax doll. Okay – that is a bit weird 🙂
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I’m thinking if I brought home a full sized wax figure it would cause problems and I would have an appointment or ten scheduled by my wife
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At least you’d give the local shrink some business 🙂
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I’m sure the local shrink is picking out the options for the new car as he heard the words “She may be wax on the outside but…”
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Haha! There could be a lot of money in it for him. There was an English philospher and thinker called Jeremy Bentham who decreed his remains should not be buried, but mummified, dressed and installed ina case in hos old university. Couldn’t help but think of him … http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/10/23/jeremy_bentham_died_in_1850_but_he_s_still_sitting_in_a_hallway_at_this.html
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Atlas obsura is one of the greatest things ever! 😀 I’ll go check it out. Thanks
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Enjoy! 🙂
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I find it disturbing about his head being used as football. I can’t imagine the mummification practices were well used then
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Always disturbing to hear of a head being used as a football – mummified or not! I’m sure the preservation can’t have been great. The Ancient Egyptians might have had a great deal of success, but they didn’t have to contend with humid British summers and wet and overcast Bristish winters. Best not to think about what his head looked like after all that 🙂
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Desert people were good with the mummy thing. When it’s dry and hot, there aren’t much that rots.
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You almost lapsed into poetry there … Yes, great for preservation, all that dessicating sand 🙂
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Hope that the feather duster is gentle, for she had such a shock.🙂
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It’s a rude awakening when we find it we aren’t who we think we are.
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Excellent Mark, loved it….
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Thank you very much. I just couldn’t get past the wax figure part.
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