Gwen was at her wits’ end. Mother was going in for a Modification… again.
“Are you absolutely certain you want to do this, Mother? It’s so extreme.”
Candace Chesterwood tossed a stack of silk handkerchiefs and a lavender pomade into her threadbare carpetbag and closed the latches with an authoritative snap. “Doris Wilkes-Barron had the procedure last week. I’m already behind schedule. People will begin to talk.”
“I’ve never felt right about this mad rush to cosmetic surgery. Changing one’s skin as if it were a jacket or scarf. And now that they’ve added genetic manipulation to the mix… it just seems unnatural.”
“Nonsense, Gwendolyn. Ladies of our station must attend to fashion. To allow oneself to become outmoded, behind the times, is to become irrelevant. When people cease to be intrigued by a woman’s appearance, they sense a tacit permission to ignore her words and ideas.”
“I don’t believe that. Powerful ideas will always transcend external form. I mean, consider Stephen Hawking, or Albert Einstein, or even Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, for heaven’s sake. People were drawn to them because of their intellect.”
“All men, darling. Society holds women to a different standard.”
“Very well, then… how about Marie Curie? Betty Friedan? Queen Victoria?”
“No one ignores a queen, Gwendolyn, even if she looks like the business end of a boxing glove.”
“You’re being foolish, Mother. This is just too much. I went along with the cosmetic peels, the face-lifts, the liposuction, the implants, even the stripes. The magazines are still raving about the stripes, by the way.”
“As well they should. There was a headline just this morning: Jungle Chic — Candace Chesterwood Takes Mods to the Next Level!” Candace sighed, taking a moment with the mirror to adjust the shoulders of her black dress. It set off her tawny, feline skin nicely. “It’s a pity there are so few colors that don’t clash with Tigress. Ah, well, I won’t have that problem much longer.”
“What if it doesn’t take this time? You could have a rejection. You’d be ruined for the rest of your life.”
“Doctor Harrington is the best in the world, dear. I’m in good hands.”
“I hope so, for your sake.” Gwen threw her hands up in surrender. “There’s no turning back once you’ve set sail. If you don’t like the results, it’ll be at least a year before you’re permitted surgery again. Either way, I’ll be waiting for you in the recovery room when you wake up.” She enveloped her mother in a fierce hug. “I love you. I suppose it’s just hard for me to accept my mum changing her face every year. Childhood memories and all that.”
“It’s still the same me inside, dearest,” Candace replied, patting her daughter’s back. “Let’s go.”
***
Six weeks later, Gwen was quite ready for her mother’s convalescence to end, and Candace was eager to get the bandages off and reveal her new look to the world. Doris Wilkes-Barron had already garnered three favorable reviews in the society pages, and Candace’s only mention had been a snide speculation about whether the diva was falling behind her competition.
Gwen stood by anxiously as the doctor slowly unwound the wrappings shrouding Candace’s face. She was steeled against what she knew lay beneath, but as the final few swathes of gauze fell away, she gasped, involuntarily. Doctor Harrington was the best in the world. It was perfect… absolutely perfect.
Candace Chesterwood’s head, from the tips of her pointy ears, to the jowls wobbling pendulously below her tusk-jawed snout, was that of a large pig. “Give me a mirror, give me a mirror!” she squealed.
The doctor’s assistant brought a small hand mirror. Candace stared at the pink, fleshy image in silence for a few moments, eyes darting back and forth like tiny blue beads behind slitted eyelids. Her jaw quivered, releasing a thin stream of saliva onto her hospital gown, and she sniffed twice with a wet, snorting sound before exploding into a piercing wail.
Gwen rushed to her mother’s side. “It’s not so bad, really.” Her mind spun wildly, desperately trying to formulate some words of comfort. “Frankly, I think it’s a much better job than they did on Mrs. Wilkes-Barron. Much more true-to-life.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Candace moaned, “I’m pink. Pink!”
“What does the color matter? I think it’s a… fine… pig’s face.”
“It was supposed to be black. Black goes with everything. Pink is absolutely last year. It’s the kiss of death. The snout’s all wrong as well, and the ears…” Candace turned her attention to the doctor. “You idiot!” she snarled, “You’ve ruined me! I specifically told you I wanted to be a Hampshire! You made me a Yorkshire! I can’t show my face in public like this… I can’t… I can’t…”
She dissolved into grunting sobs.
“It’ll be all right,” Gwen crooned as she stroked her mother’s bristly face. “You’ll make it work. You’re still Candace Chesterwood after all… my brilliant, lovely mother.”
Fred Warren lives in the merry old land of Kansas with his lovely wife, three above-average kids, and two eccentric dogs. He recently retired from the Air Force and now has a fun but somewhat less exciting job flying computer-simulated airplanes for the Army. Fred’s stories have also appeared in Postcards From, A Fly in Amber, Sand: A Journal of Strange Tales, Residential Aliens and Sorcerous Signals.
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19 Responses to “FOR FASHION’S SAKE • by Fred Warren”
Comments
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January 27th, 2009 at 3:10 am
yuk
January 27th, 2009 at 3:13 am
Excellent, not at all what I was expecting at the end! I rather thought that “the next big thing” would be to come full circle and have a normal face again, the pig was a surprise, very weird, and obviously not enough for Candace. Interesting commentary on a plastic surgery-obsessed culture.
January 27th, 2009 at 3:36 am
I was thinking about an old Twilight Zone episode all through this piece, and thus prepared to be underwhelmed. But you really pulled it out with this line:
“You’ve ruined me! I specifically told you I wanted to be a Hampshire! You made me a Yorkshire!”
Hilarious! Perfect!
(I also like this: “No one ignores a queen, Gwendolyn, even if she looks like the business end of a boxing glove.”)
Thanks for a very funny and surprising start to the day.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:13 am
A beautifully crafted piece of work!
Congrats.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:36 am
Oh this is a hoot! And a surprising story as well! Good show!
January 27th, 2009 at 5:25 am
Be careful. The Queen frequents EDF. I knew something was up…but didn’t see this coming. A nice snide satire of high society.
January 27th, 2009 at 6:04 am
This one earns five oinks!
January 27th, 2009 at 7:19 am
This was absolutely wonderful. I was completely surprised. Great job! Fantastic work. The flow is just right.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:35 am
This was completley fantastic! I loved how far fetched it was, I knew something bad was going to happen but I didn’t think it would be on this level of absurdity! It’s an absolutle five from me!
January 27th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Great voice and flow. Pig-perfect!
–dj
January 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I really wanted to love this story: Great grammar, humour and flow, awesome suprise ending. But the “Brazil” plotline kept distracting me. It’s really really hard to do something that’s been done befor. If I hadn’t seen Brazil I probably would have given this story a 5.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:16 am
Funny and scary too. dread to think what the future of fashion holds!
January 28th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Interesting new genre: What we emphasize about mothers.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:26 am
haha….excellent climax……will make sure to read it out to my, “oh-so-fashionable” cousin………
niice!!
January 29th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Nice satire. I really loved the ending, and didn’t see it coming.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Colorful word use. Smooth flow. A fine twist-ending . . perversly logical. You’ve go to laugh at people involved in fashion. It gave me a good laugh.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
[...] story, “For Fashion’s Sake,” is up at Every Day Fiction, and I just got word from Kaleidotrope that “The Silver [...]
February 7th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
What an ending! Took me completely by surprise. Loved the story.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
This is too funny! “You made me a Yorkshire!”