Every time Tep posts the drabble topic, I try to come up with something to write, but inspiration hasn't struck very often. When it did only drivel came out. With this one, though, the memory floated up as soon as I thought of masks.

I didn't mean to kill the thread, though. Edited because I can't seem to type properly tonight.

Don't worry, Deena. I've got more idea for masks. My drive up to Minneapolis gave me some wonderful ideas. If I still remember them tomorrow after I recover from the chocolate martini.

Hey, all, I never write period, pretty much, but this story coming up could be my "I Only Have Eyes For You" So I don't know how to get this kind of info... What might a Southern woman in the mid-fifties wear that would make people around think she's Not Quite A Nice Girl? Not a hooker, just, like...forward? Bright lipstick, too much perfume, pants in public? She's a city woman, if that helps.

A drabble for the mask theme:

I’m a body on a gurney, waiting my turn in the hall outside a busy triage.

The usual fictions don’t apply here. I’m below the masks now- scraped down to essentials- literally without a leg to stand on.

Nobody ever died of patellar arrest, and my cell phone signal won’t connect. Too busy to help me replace my shattered mask.

So me and my blown out tendon commune with the ice pack that’s turned into warmish slush. I whisper prayers and promises and wonder is the day that the fears I’ve hidden behind my stylish facade wardrobe bloom into undeniable flesh.

What might a Southern woman in the mid-fifties wear that would make people around think she's Not Quite A Nice Girl? Not a hooker, just, like...forward? Bright lipstick, too much perfume, pants in public? She's a city woman, if that helps.

I just checked with my mom, who was in high school in the 50s -- she said her recollection, for both teens and grown-ups, was that there was, unsurprisingly, lots and lots and LOTS of conformity, and so there wouldn't be much visually to give you a clue. It was all pretty subtle. A sweater or skirt just a bit too tight. Hair not just dyed blonde, but bleached. For high school girls, chewing gum in class and smoking anywhere on school grounds. And attitude -- not appearing to seek everyone else's approval, or even care about it one way or the other.

But mostly, my mom said, because everyone looked and dressed so much alike, it was gossip. Fast women got smugly gossiped about by the guys who nailed them (or claimed to have), who let their friends and younger brothers in on it, who told their sisters and moms, who whispered behind their hands whenever She walked by, whether or not the guy who started it was telling anything resembling the truth.

So some jerkwad you said "No, thanks," to, could make up this whole fantasy world and wreck *your* life just cause he felt like it? D'oh. Stupid double standard. (Not that that will happen in my story...that character *has* actually done a bit of carrying-on as I envision her, but I guess that is why older women tell me so often that my mouth will get me in trouble.)

Ro, that's an amazing drabble. Must think about it more.

Thanks, Beverly.

Felt a bit lumpy, but it's giving me some things to think on for future, so that's a reasonable ROI for a hundred words.

No new topic?

Tep? I feel a need to drabble, and I completely blanked on masks. You want some possibilities?