Catharsis II: An Army of Words (AUDITIONS)

Applicant #37: Mrs. Flowerbomb

My hands caress the top of this vanity desk cluttered with make-up products and grooming needs. I stare dejectedly at my morose reflection as my right hand shapes the object I'm trying to hold -- a bottle of perfume. It's not like the ones from Gucci or Victoria's Secret, it's far more special and priceless than that. I gently throw my head back, my long locks of blonde hair fall to my unclothed neck and back, tickling and brushing on my damp skin. I lift the bottle to my neck before pushing the cap down. It releases its clouds of aroma, enveloping me in its smoke that makes me high.

But I'm far from being satiated, I spray the perfume again and again and again. Till my naked skin gets clothed in its smell, till I'm nothing but a scent myself. I look back at my reflection in my mirror and catch my hands traveling on my breasts, across my shoulders, to my neck, and down to my arms. Scraping the odor and scattering it all over my body, rubbing it with such agility. I want this smell to stay on my body and never leave forever, I want it to be my flesh.

A loud scream escapes my mouth, then it turns to a deafening cry of loneliness. My mascara drips and races with my tears. I hug my nakedness ever so tight, then tighter. The mirror says I'm a mess, but it's been like this since you left. I pull the drawer below the desk, revealing a folded camouflage pants and an old, damaged video camera. I switch it open and play the only video stored.

"Listen, honey. We talked about this before, right? We're scared that this will happen and we live each day hoping it will not, but it's real right now . . . with this little time I have left, I love you . . . I know you've already memorized it but I love you . . . for this last time . . . I'm sorry I kept you for eight years then I'll just leave you like this . . . I love y--"

My tears hit the screen as explosions of the war took him from me. The camera survived, he didn't. Days later, the letter I feared came with the camera and a bottle of perfume he had made from the extracted smell of his military uniform.

I feel your soul intertwines with mine in every spray, every smoke, every cloud. And I never left home without bathing in that perfume ever since.

Our memories are planted as seeds inside me. My heart and lungs are their soil; sadness and longing are my water. The more years I go without you, the more I know I still need you, the more they sprout and grow and bloom into colorful flowers. And although they are all majestic, I still can't breathe. You're that thing that gives ache to my chest. You're the best thing I have had once, and never again. You're the one thing that keeps me awake at night with both nightmares and sweet dreams. The thing I can never let go of.

Never.