Visage

There was a young woman traveling on the train this morning who most certainly would have been declared very beautiful by all standard authorities on the subject, were it not for a disfiguring and unsightly nose that sucked the beauty from her remaining facial feartures like a giant leech: a nose that even the most hideous of witches would have been proud to claim as part of her evil physiognomical bag of tricks; an ugly stepsister's nose haphazardly attached to a Cinderella's face; indeed, for a moment I even imagined that she must be returning from an all night fancy dress party and had merely forgotten to remove this ridiculous element of her costume appendage, and so I looked in vain for the elastic string that would have held such an appendage in place, but the mournfully bleak depths of her eyes, long wearied by staring down through that crooked lump of cartilage and across those bulbous brown freckles where thick hairs sprouted, told the true story. How many, many hours, I wondered, must she have spent cursing her nose while weeping in the mirrors hung in her home, or when casting sidelong distressed glances at the reflecting windows of the buildings that she passed. What glorious and glamorous female heights she could conquered without that nose, what dashing male admirers she could have shimmered among if only that nose conformed to the ravishing qualities exhibited by the rest of her face, only the most tear-stained and melodramatic of romance novels could tell of. And so I was glad that, although I am not particularly handsome, I am adequately and equally plain all over.

Comments

[susan]

So beautifully written and poignant to the point I hope to think it a piece of fiction; torn too much by feeling to accept the fact of this dear lady's pain.

[stephenesque]

Thanks for your kind words about my writing. Perhaps there may have been a little license added, but the essential facts of the story are true. I hope she doesn't read blogs.

[Misspent]

First question: Who knew that Mrs. P was in Boston?

Second question: Who moved the typing boy??

[The Colossus]

Plastic surgery? I mean, this is the twenty-first century and all.

[Outer Life]

Most measure beauty by conformity to an ideal form. There are some, however, who measure it by distinction from the form. It could be that the young lady was raised by parents who taught her to value that which makes her distinctive. Or it could be that her parents couldn't afford rhinoplasty.

[Monjo]

Imagine if there's a small town in the US where they have a Big Nose Beauty pageant! Maybe she's from there and think she's quite a hottie.

Anyway you dont need rhinoplasty. Just run into a brick wall a few times and get it fixed on your healthcare.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Obviously Misspent knew I was in Boston. Mr. Baldwin, were you the plain man in clad in tertiary colors? I do recall gazing on your mug and saying to myself, "If he only had a nose..."