Ice Queen

Searching for materials for my classes, I headed to the newly opened library. Nothing special, I thought, as I traversed the ever-expanding corridors. The elderly librarian greeted me with the glint of a wedding ring on her ring finger. She directed me to the left, toward a door marked "Resources available on-site." There was no one else, so I began to weave my way freely between the brass shelves. My eyes, darting around the unfamiliar place, searched for the letter "W." Finally, I found the label, grabbed the handle of the wide cabinet, and pulled it toward me. Something creaked. Nervously, I tugged again, and then a body slipped out. Just as if in a mortuary, it lay half-naked, with closed eyes and hands on its chest. "The body of a woman, 30 years old, occupation and other details omitted," announced a voice emerging from nowhere. The air began to vibrate and mix with streaks of light. Alternating streams of light, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, flowed from the upper wall of the metal box and, like an X-ray, illuminated the object. The point here was not to get inside and examine individual organs, but to penetrate even the smallest crevices of the skin.

A specimen of a human being, meant for reading—the voice, intermingled with my thoughts, encouraged me to leaf through this modern book. Obedient hands delved into The lyrics. And with every fragment, every smallest detail, he told a story.

Preparing a fashionable face takes about two hours. Start by choosing the right shade of powder for the season. Then, cover your chin, cheeks, nose, and forehead with a thick layer. A universal shade of brown with a hint of peach will highlight the iris. Apply a darker shade of shadow to the outer corners of your eyes. Don't forget to carefully blend it with a brush, but only halfway down the eyelid. Brighten the inner corners with a different shade, preferably creamy white. Men's eyes will be drawn to maximally elongated lashes with black mascara. Blood-red lips and matching nails are essential, a symbol of pulsating femininity. At that moment, the message stopped. It was replaced by music that filled the entire room. One, two, three, turn and bow – the melody with the explanation in the background sounded off. It encouraged me to surrender to the rhythm. Even the thighs of the body lying before me began to tremble as if a new life had awakened within them. Life. They must have been trained daily to cover the next kilometers, obediently tense, bound by a too-tight skirt that had to be adjusted. There's no need to threaten with medieval torture—a warning hung in the air. A gesture of disapproval is enough to say, "You're not as beautiful as yesterday," and the machine of internal compulsion will double its pace.

One, two, three, show me what you're made of... "

I wonder if this light tans," a senseless thought flashed through my mind.

The woman's skin seemed to be browning by the minute, like a body subjected to a quick treatment from artificial sunlight. I looked at my white hands and grimaced in disgust. They looked asexual—I absolutely had to do something about them. The other woman probably didn't have such problems. She was parading along the beach in a skimpy bikini. A walking advertisement for sunscreen. For a moment, I envied her supposed success and the constant vacations I couldn't afford.

"That's the body you wear this season," the posters shouted: breasts, legs, and arms.

The object I stood before suddenly twitched. I glanced back and saw itself reflected in the plane of the library mirror. It was no longer lying there as before, or perhaps I had just imagined it rising and beginning its daily routine. The woman was playing with different versions of itself. She was trying on dresses, blouses, and pairing them with appropriate accessories. She swayed her hips seductively, ran her hand through her hair, revealing the outline of her neck, and rolled the corner of her skirt in her hand.

"Shorter, even shorter," whispered her lips, twisted in a grimace of dissatisfaction

. But her eyes were different. Images spun like a carousel ride. She vomited. She felt that mad dizziness that told her, "This moment lasts forever." Consumed by deceitful diets, she miraculously tied the chain of her intestines. She choked. She extracted organs with a sterile glove. Even her stomach howled, secreting the last of its acids. Anything but tighten the sagging skin along with the tight size 36 dress. It didn't matter that, looking into the distance, she felt dizzy and collapsed, running to the bathroom. It was only a minute's break in the film. Swirling calorie lists flashed before my eyes as she grabbed them one by one and attached another label to the stem of a juicy apple. Another hour and she'd be able to afford that luxury. Plus cigarettes, to support her efforts and, at least for a moment, quell the strange irritability and nervousness. She felt so proud as she swayed like a model on her long, slender legs, the wind flirting with her body, tilting it gently right and left. Her protruding shoulder blades drew closer together, and her torso straightened, accentuating her breasts, or rather, their absence. Had she already transformed from a self-conscious Cinderella into a charming queen? The ice queen, paranoid about losing inches in her thighs, planned the next day's menu in her sleep. In her nightmares, she wallowed in hot chocolate. Let everyone watch and admire the rising star, it doesn't matter that her eyes are fading, colorless.

"Only a man looks like that. His power over the body penetrates ever deeper. It enslaves the mind," I concluded after much thought. "

And thousands of women perform the same ritual in front of the mirror every day. Stupid women," I sighed, my voice trailing off.

I absentmindedly glanced at my watch. It was already three-thirty, and the twinge in my stomach reminded me of the approaching lunchtime. I smiled at who-knows-who and slid back the vivid text that had taken me so long to read.

"I hope you won't run away," I said from the doorway.