porcelain
She’s attempting to explain something she doesn’t understand. Her rhetoric is redundant, filled with repeated key words, their meanings only partially recognized. The same points are explained more than once, a different technique each time to overcomplicate and confuse. She’s like a small child explaining politics. The simplest ideas are convoluted.
I try not to laugh. It would offend her, though she’d have only a small idea what caused the outburst. Her discussion is so easy to follow, and yet so off-base, that I grow intensely bored. I start to list off things I need to do around the house before the weekend, drift off to thoughts of the weekend, and generally stop listening.
I won’t miss anything. I’ve heard the conversation before. Her stories are ill-timed and irrelevant, but played up as hilarious. Courtesy laughs abound. Her laugh is fake, loud, and cackling, unless in response to a comment of her own. So much of her worth is wrapped in what she has or wears and how she looks that most comments are directed accordingly.
Her materialism pales in comparison to her passive aggressiveness. Her suggestions and comments are so saturated with it, that if it were tactile, she’d be wading in a puddle of it. I imagine it as a maroon-black goo, sticking to her bargain-shopper skirts and dripping down the heels of shoes she never needed. She bends only to equals or superiors in the office; even then, only after careful deliberation and compromises heavily in her favor.
When diverted, attention is directed back at her within moments. Her cheesy, false smile beams from ear to ear in response to suggestions that will eventually be ignored—if listened to at all. There is only a thin sheen of interest over vacuous, dead eyes. Earlier today, in an cube that was not her own, she yelled with glee upon finding treats that everyone else had already found. I can only imagine the reaction of the person on the other side of the line on the phone in the cube dweller’s hand.
Her lack of consideration will never be mentioned. If it is, it will be dismissed with a series of excuses and insincere apologies.
How has she avoided social norms for so long? What does she think about? She has to have some substance beyond appearances. Is it a series of defense mechanisms? Does she think this over-maintained, expensively-clothed, hollow-laughing persona is appealing? Are her relationships outside of work the same as within? Are they just a layer of filth caked to the sides of an empty fifty-five gallon drum? Would a blow to her aesthetic appeal shatter her?
She appears to have good intentions, but her control renders them insignificant. Her chosen path in life is one of communication, yet she lacks basic skills of interaction. To get to the point of near middle age, with social skills rivaling a senior in high school, is practically impossible. What’s beneath the detached grin and glass eyes? There must be more. No one can live as a porcelain doll.