Flushed

Flash Fiction piece inspired by an unlikely senario on Valentine's Day.

 

At about six in the evening, soft sniffling could be heard from inside the women’s bathroom. The constant sound of a toilet flushing over and over drowned out the louder wails that came from the secretary’s mouth. The fluorescent light on the ceiling flickered about every twenty-four seconds in the dominantly colorless bathroom.

 

Dressed in an eye-catching apple red suit, the plump woman had lifted herself onto the counter and dabbed at her raccoon eyes with toilet paper. Her legs dangled off the floor, her high heels having slipped off to rest on the gray tile.

 

The light flickered again, and the woman glanced at the watch on her wrist. The numbers made her vision blur with fresh tears. She whimpered loudly and fumbled with the pile of paper at her side. Her pink nails ripped the frail toilet paper, and the squares she used to dry her face quickly turned into useless rags. She balled the ineffective paper and threw it into the small trash can a few feet away.

 

The trash can was almost full to the brim with pink, red and white remnants. Empty chocolate wrappers poured from a heart box like an open wound and a wilted white rose hung limply over the side of the can.

 

The woman looked at her watch again, let out a frustrated cry, and leapt off the counter. Her feet painfully collided with the high heels, but she ignored the pain and shuffled to the bathroom door. Her pink nails dug into her skin when her fingers wrapped around the door handle. She could see the office beyond the door in her mind’s eye, nearly empty because of the holiday. She tugged on the door with all her strength, but the heavy door would not budge, jammed tight and unyielding.

 

She sunk down to the floor, one hand still clinging to the handle. With a quivering lip, she pulled a pink envelope out her shirt pocket and stared longingly at the swirling curves of the fancy print and blooming roses on the cover of the sleek invitation.

 

Her clock did not match the time printed on the card.       

Reviews

[Ryan Jaimz Knight]

Damn, what a way to spend your holiday unwilling locked in a bathroom, and missing out on a decent party because of it. I like the way you captured the anguish of the character, but I feel you could have breathed more life into the story since the minimalist approach works well for this piece yet it still needs some extra details as far as atmosphere and description in order to really make it come alive. I felt that the phrase "anguished scream" was a bit over the top, despair and frustration come more readily to mind than anguish since its use makes the woman seem a bit melodramatic. Other than that, I feel that this story is off to a good start, and I think that it has the potential to become a longer piece with more detail and development. All in all, I liked it. Keep up the good work.