BRIAN BRADLEY

ART    WRITING    FILM    BIO    CONTACT

Millennium.

Something molecular.

Little delicate creatures.

Satellites falling across the sky.

From a mattress.

In the darkness.

The young & modern couple.

Tonight, in their room.

The Dorian building.

Chanel sequence.

She closes the mirror.

Life, unfolding.

Now, in the reflection of an image.

Subterranean requiem.

Are you ok?

Psychological analysis of the main character.

A beautiful apartment restoration.

Andre Leon Talley.

A young woman's rationale dissolving into insanity.

Significant loved one.

Modern infidelities.

Television.

 

2013 © Copyright Brian Bradley. All Rights Reserved

She closes the mirror as her image sees herself, “Am I getting old?” for the first time in her 24 years of life a beautiful life, a mortal quandary arises from a voice in the image in the mirror separate from the voice of the girl standing there, the appertaining thought passes through her mind; “Is 24 old?”  She sees herself, from another angle, the third image of two mirrors reflecting off one another.  She touches the skin under her neck, testing it’s still-smoothness, elasticity, creamy supple feel, the age-minimizing-anti-aging-anti-wrinke-anti-any-possiblilty-of-showing-the-effects-of-time lathered skin, searching for traitors conspiring against her eternal youth, runs her fingers along her slender angular but not overly so, delicate jawline, across high and prominent cheekbones of noble dimension, perfectly symmetrical features similar to an eternally young Gwyneth Paltrow had she, brunette almost black hair.  She angles her head so the light finds a shadow under the cheekbone, arches her eye to an almond droplet and tightens her face by pulling her lips to the left side, hollowing the cheek, further arching the eye, bites down on her teeth, lightly, further framing her face to a magazine’s definition, anemic and eschew.  She brushes her glossy darkish hair, shimmering under the natural full spectrum Vita-lite fluorescent bulbs covered by the smoked- glass-white casing of the vanity, across the left side of her face, falling behind her ear, a single alluring strand falling across her eye, and steps back, holding the focus in her face, looks forward as the images on her right and left in the angled mirrors study one another.  Straight forward, tilting her head down a degree to accentuate the perfect symmetry, cheeks cutting through the clutter, jaw – Angelinalike at this angle, a violent penumbra forms in the sockets of her eyes, a dead-on Katemossian shade of the eyelets, dropping her head a trilogy of degrees, an assassin, elevated and poised, the hallmarks of an angelic sprite.  As subjective as beauty maybe, it is hard to argue with mathematics.  Even the neurotically tinged self-consciousness-of-herself-to-the-point-of-vomiting, Chelsea King, 24, on the fragmentary anomalous occasion, found even herself, lil’ ol’ me, once in a blue hour, to be an absolute Athlete of Virtue, The Aesthetics of Modern Beauty, she.  Venus in Marc Jacobs.  Aphrodite of the Upper West Side.  In certain lighting, of particular rooms, with demanding-enough-of-a-velvet moods, moods in which entire rooms full of party people placidly wait their turn, sotto voce, to intermingle with The Popular She, the epicenter of gravity, standing in various locations around the room, Grey Mélange Multi-Colored Tweed Trench Coats and Blush Geometric Scalloped Jacquared Long Ruffle Dresses – orbit alike, of which she paradoxically enjoys, of joy immutably matching sorrow, it ended before it began, a tinge of it’s ephemeral nature forecasted in the commencement of social gathering, the temporary communion, the unenduring soiree, the all too sweet the laughter when genuine was eternal joy, a benediction to never stop resounding, even the contrived cackle of authority had it’s charms - memories of an endearing aunt washed to the surface betwixt Extacy induced company, as it began near 11 pm it felt as though it were already 5 am, complete with the strain of burst capillaries in bloodshot eyes, as of six months ago occasions dilated where by the mere promise to ‘keep the fun going’ and be ‘a persistent center of attention exigency’, before the party even started, found herself prostrate in bed by the pressure-of-hemlock-to-have-a-good-time.  Angling the mirror on the right to reveal a different angle in the other mirrors, adjusting the visible plane with her aerial fingers extending from a lithe wrist attached to an ethereal forearm below the willowy shoulder laterally posterior an elongated ivory neck, above which a statuesque face of light =  or > Natalie Portman, sees an image of itself reflecting into other images of itself, compounding into an infinite evanescence of ever smaller selves until the mirror is no longer looked upon and the entire fleet vanquishes.  Repositions her head upwards, mouth slightly agape, inhaling slowly, exuding grace that by all observations (except hers on 99.99% of examinations) would be considered, generous.  Even with all the generosity The Creator had bestowed upon her aristocratic and highly-enviable-by-friends brow, just a little more.  5 pounds less would be ideal, near-perfect, of optimal physical likeness, in her judgment, assessed within this very second.  5 pounds less would put her at 107, ‘just 5’, unmaintainable on her although naturally ‘rail’ 5’ 8” ½ - by perchance observation already leaning towards a too-thin-frame, would render her physicality a-leave-NYU-go-home-and-regain-a-healthy-weight phone call away, by that perchance observer.  The results however, she has appraised, by a ‘funhouse mirror set of numerology’, to be potentially worth every sacrifice.  It was a risk, a potentially organ failing enterprise.  But all risk has it’s rewards, she knows, she knows this, this she knows, sometimes those risks are high yield exotic derivatives and sometimes they are subprime lending divisions in NOT-too-big-enough-to-fail banks INSUFFICIENT of a government bailout.  Further sacrifice - avoiding sugar completely forever or at least reducing by half for a month.  Further sacrifice - more treadmill – increasing the normal setting of ‘Statue of Liberty Climb’ to ‘Glory Mountain Steppe’, with a base of 45 minutes, increments of 4 minutes per day, resting Saturday morning in anticipation of a murderous Sunday afternoon and resetting Monday AM with an additional time allotment of a 5 minute base (starting at 50), repeat, rinse, until target weight is secured, 107lbs (ideal).

 

2013 © Copyright Brian Bradley. All Rights Reserved.