Contempt.
Zipping her lips, she forced air inside her barrel-like nostrils, to push down the bile rising at the back of her throat.
Use ‘contempt’ in a sentence: Rabdi Zeek was feeling contemptuous of her body.
Her cheeks felt like the moon – cratered and dry. Beautiful, only if you view from a million miles away. Her temple had a bulge in the form of a plateau that never became an Everest. Ivory horns would never dignify the head of a half-breed. Her hair had that stringy, broom-like quality that could never flow like a river but entangle like bushes. Her head was too large for her wiry, cadaverous frame. The eyesore of course was her big, round, jaundiced eye at the center of her face and the vertical lids.
She has got a vagina on her face. She doesn’t have an eye, but a vag-I.
She winced. High-school had been rough.
There was a knock on the door.
“Ms. Rabdi, it’s time.”
That shook her out of her reverie. She looked back and shouted, “Two minutes.”
A muffled “okay” greeted her from the other side of the door. She scrutinized herself once again in the mirror.
Dissatisfied, she switched off the light. She can’t allow the audience to look at her with pity or disgust.
A rumbling, deep voice whispered in her mind, “You look beautiful in the ultraviolet.”
It felt like an electric jolt. She smiled at the memory. Her smooth-talking, son-of-a-bitch ex-boyfriend might still prove himself useful.
***
“She missed her slot?”
“No, she didn’t miss it. The poor fuck just didn’t want to come out of her dressing room.”
The two of them giggled.
“I really wanted her to go on stage and make an utter fool of herself!”
“A troll in a beauty contest! What was she thinking?”
“I heard that her boyfriend is with her right now, consoling the fragile flower that she is?”
“Ya, man. He is red and twice the size of the incredible hulk!”
The guy looked at her with wide eyes, “What do you think would be the size of his – “
He rolled his hand and moved it up and down. The assistant put a hand on her mouth to stifle her laughter.
The door to Rabdi Zeek’s dressing room opened.
They both looked in that direction and were shocked beyond measure.
“I am ready,” said Rabdi, calm and composed.
They both just nodded, with their mouths wide open. The boyfriend followed her out of the door, he had to double-down to come out.
“I needs to tok tu light & sound managgerr,” he rumbled.
Puzzled and terrified, they swung to action. They had no idea what was coming.
***
They were waiting with bated breath. Their eyes were glued to the stage, just as they would be to a bloody body after a gruesome accident. They wanted to see her trip, stutter, have a wardrobe malfunction or roar in utter humiliation. They were anticipating a catastrophe.
Suddenly all lights went out in the auditorium. There was a hushed silence.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then a prick of violet greeted them from the stage. It seemed to be hanging from the wall. A creeper of shocking violet and deep blue, sinuous and fetching, hanging precariously from the solid darkness.
The creeper swung and transformed. Now it was a fragile wall-flower, deep-blue and soothing. It landed lightly on its feet, and an aura emanated from the profile of Rabdi Zeek.
Gasps from the audience, and a sense of wonder.
A shadow highlighted in violet. Hips gently swaying, the clickety-click of her stilettos on the ramp, her lips luminescent red. Lithesome and alluring, there was a grace in her stance and her walk.
The aura diminished to darkness and her eye opened. Blue-green pupil against the shocking white, floating mid-air, large and arresting.
World within worlds. Deeper than a blackhole. Time stopped still. Singularity.
Then, the stage was lit up in harsh yellow lights. It took them a moment to accustom to the light after a spell of darkness. But what met their eyes shocked them.
Suddenly there were hoots of laughter. The audience was relieved that the spell was broken. They patted their pre-conceived notions, clinging firmly to their safe opinions – to consider a troll beautiful, was dangerous.
There she was – grotesqueness personified. There were ink stains on her costume, that faintly resembled letters and words – “Mountain slut”, “Vag-I”, “Golem”, “Ugly pimpled-witch”….
To them, she looked like very perverse caricature of what a model should be. But there was a doubt within their jeers, a curiosity within their taunts.
Suddenly, the lights were out. They were greeted by the warmth of her luminescence. Her back was turned to the audience, and they observed beautiful crisscross patterns of green – arcane alphabets that adorned ancient caves.
Then a wash of yellow light. And they saw that there were deep welts on her exposed back, the violence in the scars shocked them.
Light and darkness. Of the delicate beauty in her luminescence and the harsh cragginess of her profile. Juxtaposition of the awful and the awesome.
She received a standing ovation at the end of her performance.
A judge asked her, “Do you believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
She replied, “I don’t think so. Today beauty is all about light and shadows. The filters and lens we want the world to see us through. In the glare of the ultraviolet light, which you couldn’t see and perceived as darkness, the light which reflected off my skin, my luminescence – was pleasing to your eyes. In the harsh yellow light, I am ugly. Humans have called me ugly, all my life. Today, I am wearing all the scars that humanity has bestowed on me. They didn’t have the perspective of the ultraviolet. If you could see me in this band of light, you would find me more glamorous. Filters sieve beauty. It isn’t in the eye of the beholder.”
***
So that day, for the very first time a troll won a beauty contest. But Rabdi Zeek’s happiness was short-lived. As she stood outside as a chief-guest for the opening of a new beauty salon in town, few men came up to her and poured acid on her face. As they ran away, they shouted back at her, “Now we would like to see you in the ultraviolet.”
She committed suicide shortly after.
Alienman 