Ellie is a pretty girl. She has long dark brown hair that gets in her eyes sometimes and neat, delicate fingers. She is tired of spending so much time on her appearance. She is tired of spending so much money on cosmetics. She hates plucking her armpits. She hates waxing her legs. She hates curling her lashes. Her boyfriend used to get up out of bed, dress, brush his teeth and walk out the door. It takes her ages to get ready to leave the house. She’s tired of it all.
Her boyfriend used to make jokes if he found a bit of stubble under her arms. He would say;
“You could strike a match off that” and then he would laugh. He had shaved only rarely, he was usually hairy and spiky and unkempt. He was very handsome. Very successful.
“Fuck it,” thinks Ellie. She gathers all her things like razors, mirrors, nail clippers. She gathers them all and throws them in the bin. She stops even taking a bath. She lets her hair grow tangled and wild. She doesn’t cut her fingernails. She’s still on time for work, but the boss thinks she’s slacking off. He has a word with her. She doesn’t answer back, she just takes what he has to say and says she is going to try harder. She doesn’t buy any toothpaste. She stops flossing. She loses her job. She loses her house.
“All because of toothpaste!” she thinks.
She’s walking around the park with nothing to do, talking about toothpaste to herself. Talking about hair mousse and moisturiser, shampoo and tweezers, floss and wax. All that stuff is bad for the environment. All that stuff is unnatural. Perfume and antiperspirant. The contraceptive pill. Tampons. Easy glide shaving foam. Manicure sets. Talcum powder. Mascara. Lip gloss.
“It’s all unnatural. It hides your real self.” She says this to the people who are kind to her. They seem to listen. They gently lead her away.
Justificwtfn
Okay, I think you’re going to like this one.
I was checking the document properties for this bit of microfiction, which I never actually published online. Well, it was self-published in a sense. I created a little zine called Entropy, and this was the title piece. It was part of a small run of about a hundred copies that I put together for a live performance I gave in Edinburgh for the Strange Attractor event, hosted by Tim Vincent-Smith.
Tim is actually a character in one of my other stories, and an old mate. We got back in touch recently, which was brilliant. He doesn’t have a mobile phone, so the chances of him reading this are slim to none, but he is currently busy smashing pianos, building amazing structures, and playing in a band called Pianodrome, so good luck to him on that.
Anyway, the thing I found interesting is that the file metadata says the story was created in December 2011. That’s a significant date for me because I know for a fact my wife and I were trying for a baby. When guys say “we are trying to get pregnant”, it’s just a thing males say to try and sound like they’re sharing in the incredible effort it takes to incubate another human being. Which, obviously, I couldn’t do. All I could do was try to be empathetic. Because we wanted a child but didn’t know if we’d have a boy or a girl, I was curious about what life would be like if I had a daughter. This story was me trying to map out that experience.
Especially living in Japan. I had just arrived here in 2011, and it’s a place where hygiene and cleanliness are constantly brought up. It’s not an easy country to stay clean in, either. In the summer, you literally sweat your balls off. You’re constantly scratching tiger mosquito bites, and you’re surrounded by smog, pollution, and the smoke from recycling facilities just burning rubbish. And yet, the expectation to remain pristine is immense.
I started noticing all the adverts for cosmetics. Sure, men wear them too now—we use deodorant and do a bit of manscaping—but it is nowhere near the crushing amount of effort society seems to expect from women.
What brought this memory back recently was a direct message from my best mate on Substack, Moa (you know who you are). She had shared a selfie, and some bloke had spotted a bit of stubble under her arm and tried to shame her for it. That immediately dragged my mind back to this piece I wrote fifteen years ago.
Look, I’m a middle-aged man. I don’t pluck my eyebrows, though I do have to clip my nostril hair more often than I’d like. But I’m not going to lose my job over a bit of BO. Maybe this whole bit of microfiction is a massive exaggeration. To be honest, I just don’t know.
So I’d really appreciate some comments. Tell me if I’ve exaggerated this for literary effect, or if it actually rings true for you. And if all I did was piss you off, then fuck off and go buy some shampoo.
Hope you liked the story. Thanks for reading.
originally published at https://stephenprime.com/entropy-entropy-microfiction/
No. It was perfect and if I had read this blind, I would have thought it was written by a woman. Best of all was that it was a perfectly balanced tragic comedy that took its concept to its logical conclusion. It leaves me thinking wow.
I think if she would've drawn a line she wouldn't cross at taking a shower and brushing teeth (you know the same stuff us dudes do), she would've been fine.
Seriously tho, makeup freaks me out. If women asked me, I'd tell them to save their time/money/ozone layer. And armpit hair is ewww regardless of gender.