Today’s words: Gesture, Duchess,
Eloquence, Vestigial
Word count: 435
Completion time: 42 minutes
Summary: People need to stop promoting
the idea that looking older is bad...because why?
--
Sam was a beauty. I don’t mean in
the conventional sense...they just exuded this air of elegance and striking
attractiveness that was difficult to explain; small things like the way the
eyelids framed the eyes, the shape of their lips when they smiled, the smooth
voice that Sam always complained was an octave out of place (with a vestigial
hint of Irish), but fit them like Cinderella’s glass slipper. More than that,
Sam’s demeanour, not to mention eloquence, was comparable to that of a duchess –
polite, charming, and pleasant to be around; not to mention that Sam’s hair was
usually curled in shoulder-length ringlets after a quick brush.
This was the sort of person who,
upon waking, looked like they had spent a couple of hours getting ready. Sam
could redefine the artificial ‘just got out of bed’ look and make it literal,
something that only movie stars could get away with, but not them. There was no
secret to it, Sam just had a face that looked good, no matter how ‘bad’ it was
supposed to look.
Whilst you may think this a
biased account, it’s not only me who holds this opinion. Often, Sam would be
asked for beauty tips and bombarded with questions along the lines of, “How do
you get your face to look so young, so fresh?” when in reality, Sam detested
adverts that encouraged ‘anti-aging’.
“Why are people so scared of
getting – not even that – looking older?” Sam asked out loud one day as we sat
in front of the TV, one hand made to gesture towards their face. “There are people
in their twenties fretting over wrinkles, getting Botox, praising their peers
for looking so much younger than them, getting offended if they get asked for
identification in bars...I don’t understand it, and it’s usually the women.
People need to stop telling women that looking older is bad or unattractive.”
I piped up then. “When I was
younger, we were under the impression that men always aged gracefully, getting
handsome when they were in their 40s, 50s, maybe even 60s...but women reached
their ‘expiry date’ after 40. We were just teenagers then, but as we were all very
impressionable girls, we believed every word.”
Sam put one leg up on the sofa
and faced me. “’Expiry date’,” Sam repeated, followed by a look of disgust. “Humans
aren’t bits of food. I heard something similar, though...which, I’m ashamed to
say, made me a little smug. Like, ‘Whoa, I’m still gonna be handsome even when
I’m nearing retirement? Nice!’”
“You’re so lucky,” I teased.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
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