All that is needed

On the first Friday of each month the Australian Writers Centre runs a 55 hour 500 word writing challenge called Furious Fiction. It’s furious fun! June’s writing prompt was an image (extract above – see the full image and the winner and shortlisted stories here).

The first thing I saw was a face in the window. So, here’s my 500 words worth:  

All that is needed
The room is a symphony of light and symmetry. Marta steps back from the table and I lean forward. I would press myself against the glass if I could. I would draw close and closer still, a moth to the room’s bright flame.

She nods once, affirming perfection, and tugs the cloth from her belt. Transformed from menial to hostess, she opens the door.

Two waiters hurry in, hired so Marta can enjoy herself. They look young and rumpled in borrowed suits. The freckled one darts a glance at the window and I shrink back into shadow, but no doubt he only checks the bottles of wine on the sill.

The guests follow. Sebastian and Elisabeth. Arthur, immaculate. Charles, messy as ever. His bow-tie sits askew and a lock of hair waves like a parrot’s crest. Sybille and Frances whisper secrets. Fiona casts venomous glances at her cousins’ dresses, their heels, their effortless chic.

Grand-mère claps her hands at all Marta has wrought. Her diamonds catch and scatter the light as she turns, admiring. I feel her gaze pass over me and her smile dims. But she presses her powdered cheek to Marta’s, murmuring praise.

I don’t know the other five. Friends? Colleagues? One is a redhead in a tight dress which hugs her curves, snug as whipped cream. Sebastian admires her and thinks Elisabeth doesn’t notice. Two dangerous men, sleek as jungle cats, in their dark suits and matching ties. Another man, attentive to a middle-aged beauty in an emerald sari.

The women flutter, bright as butterflies, finding their places. The men settle like sombre moths beside them. Their chatter fades and they turn to raise their glasses to the guests of honour.

Teddy stands in the doorway, a pirate in a three-piece suit. For a moment, he is all I can see. He smiles at the room but his gaze avoids the windows. An ice queen clings to his arm – diamonds on alabaster skin, white dress and ash-blonde hair. She looks cold but not as cold as me. Then she laughs and pulls him with her to the window.

Her face is inches from mine. She doesn’t see me.

“What a view you have,” she exclaims, “although we’re only, what, five floors up?”

Against the wall, the waiter pales beneath his freckles. Does he see behind the reflection of blonde prettiness is a dark-haired girl looking in from the other side of the glass with eyes like coals?

Teddy doesn’t see me. He never really saw me. He went on with his life and left me here, pinned like a specimen fixed to a board. The windows are old and heavy enough to break the spine of anyone incautious enough to lean out. Although someone would have to release the sash cord.

It wasn’t the fall which killed me.

“To absent friends,” Marta says and raises her glass to me.

Everything is perfect. Everyone is here. And I am the ghost at the feast.