The Pretender

the notorious hotel... monument to the greed of men, it is a breathing stone-hewn titan - looming over her, threatening pomposity, selfishness threaded with egyptian cotton, the cold stares of people from the upper leagues of life... yet the young street girl enters anyway, defiant, stilted and out of place in her cheap summer dress - the breath of success sucks her in, money-scented sussurations kissing her plebian cheekbones... taken by the hand she glides up velvet stairs, half-drowning as she soars past fish tanks bubbling to the ceilings, past effervescent marble arches... the rich flit by her, swan-like, with noses tilted heaven-ward emitting the subtle reek of idle hedonism... breathless, restive, she perches in a gilt chair, bitten fingernails tapping ivory tablecloth, waiters descend like falcons swooping in for the kill - 'tea or coffee, madam, scones with devonshire cream madam, your soul on a silver platter madam...' who is this madam, she muses, checking her reflection in the silver teapot, who is this woman wearing my skin, a pretender to the crown of the landed - distracted, melancholy, she crumbles her fruit cake, swallows the strawberry sorbet in icy gulps... distractedly she notes the taste of gunmetal - her cappuccino is sprinkled with gold dust... caged in by gilded illusion her lungs labour, claustrophobia gripes though the roofs soar up to touch God's soles... she is not welcome here, she feels doomed, somehow, unworthy - a goldfish floundering with the sharks... jumping to her feet she flees, kitten heels clattering on mosaic floors - out the door, panting, flushed, into air that smells of exhaust, of seaspray and sweat and natural things relieved she slows, straightens her spine, sniffs the wind - a smile flirts with her lips as she strolls away into the anonymous night, the little lamb who escaped from the slaughterhouse