#TwitchFriday
#PicturePrompt
#FlashFiction
It was another New Year’s Eve, and Mary knew just what she wanted.
She was alone, as was often the case. Francis had gone out to chill with his friends, leaving her at home to prep for tomorrow’s cooking.
He’d used the usual excuses before he drove out.
“You didn’t even make your hair.”
But Mary was battling a recurring migraine. Getting a new hairdo would only worsen it.
“Won’t you try fixing your nails? All my guys’ girlfriends and wives look so good with theirs.”
But he knew Mary couldn’t function with artificial nails. And she had so much cooking to do the next day because Francis only just informed her – almost too late – that he was hosting his friends at their home.
“I think your face is getting dark again. I thought you were going to buy those face creams that my friend’s wife recommended? And what about that Microblading stuff? Let this new year not pass you and these your bushy eyebrows by o.”
The complaints were relentless; little digs that whittled down her self-esteem every day. She was tired of not being enough for her husband. He wanted her to be sexier, fairer, more available, less assertive… he’d even suggested that she buy a waist trainer to get the wasp-like waists of those famous Instagram celebrities. But Mary was a simple woman, with a simple type of beauty. He knew that before he wooed and married her. Yet, in just a year, he’d become so critical of her, while doing little to change his own looks even though he was not Instagram-ready himself.
The truth was glaring – her husband just wanted her to be a whole new person.
So, Mary was in bed, exhausted from an evening full of preparations for the next day, head pounding, and eyes misty as her heart clenched with loneliness.
She picked up her phone and logged into Facebook, scrolling down her friends’ timelines. They were all trading new year wishes and declaring their new year resolutions. Caught up in the spirit of the festivities, she typed out a heartfelt plea in the comment section of her favourite influencer’s motivational post.
I’M PUTTING IT OUT THERE TO THE UNIVERSE. I JUST WANT TO MEET THE EXPECTATIONS OF MY LOVED ONES. MY WISH IS …NEW YEAR, NEW ME.
She hit post, and sighed, letting the tears flow. She knew she was enough but to save her young marriage, she would do whatever she needed to be more. Suddenly, her phone buzzed, and she raised her brow in surprise at the notification.
The Universe Likes Your Comment.
Mary couldn’t open the account with the strange name. She only accessed a notification that the page could not open. She chewed on the inside of her lip, wondering what type of account named itself the Universe. Perhaps it was just a gag – an account created just to react to the comments on the post. But a quick check showed her that no one else had gotten a similar Like.
She was still thinking about it when exhaustion took over and she drifted off to sleep, her phone tumbling out of her hand to the bed.
At 12am, when cheers rang across the neighbourhood and drifted in through the bedroom window, Mary was still fast asleep. Beside her, the screen of her phone began to gleam softly, brightly enough to illuminate the body of the sleeping woman… as it began to experience some strange changes.
CRACK! POP! POP! CRACK!
The Universe was at work.
Francis returned home at 3am, groggy from a night of partying hard to welcome the new year. He staggered upstairs and entered his bedroom, barely glancing at his wife who was snuggled up under the duvet.
He went into the bathroom to pee, yanked off his shoes, pulled off his shirt and plopped into bed. He barely glanced at his wife, and the mean thought in his mind was that there was nothing much to see there anyway.
But he was wrong.
He’d just barely settled in before something tickled his ear. He brushed at it in annoyance, wondering if there were mosquitoes in the room, and turned around to cuss at his wife for not spraying the needed insecticide.
Halfway through the movement, he paused. His wife’s side of the bed was empty, but there was someone… something… above his head.
A scream locked in his throat as he recognized Mary in the dim light. Yet, he did not recognize her.
“You were right, my love,” his wife whispered. “Tonight, I made a wish to the Universe – to change because I needed to. But that change doesn’t just end with me. I have to get rid of my biggest problem – and it’s not me.”
Her fingers dangled over his face, tipped with long nails, just as he’d requested, except they were curved into talons that teasingly wiggled across his eyes. Her hair was ‘bone straight’, its long strands moving snakelike over his head. And her face… while beautiful, with perfectly arched eyebrows, it was not filled with love.
“New Year, New me!” Mary croaked, and then leaned forward to kiss Francis where he lay, frozen in terror.
It was a kiss that had too much teeth.
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