Leena bought the Skirt on a whim when she was having one of her down days, and it worked; she felt her mood change instantly whenever she put it on. 

Today, she walks the city streets, looking in shop windows, and acknowledging people’s silent admiration by letting a sly smile play at the corners of her mouth. She is confident.

Then she sees something odd in the reciprocating smile bestowed upon her by a man in a suit, and hears a gaggle of young girls in school uniforms laugh, and notices that a handsome trio of construction workers are barely noticing her, (are, in fact, doing their best to avoid it).

On the walk back to the train station, however, Leena finds that she is anything but ignored. People are crowding in, spilling over from the road, climbing over one another, jostling for the best position to laugh and point accusatory fingers in her face.

What well did they haul you up from?

My god, you’re an ugly woman.

The sights you see when you don’t have a gun!

Leena boards the train, instantly set upon by a carriage load of judging faces. She takes a book out of her bag, hastily opens it at a random page and tries to read. But all she sees are the same words printed over and over again:

Ugly.

Cow.

Deluded.

Stupid.

Flake.

Failure.

Leena leaves the book on the seat beside her when she gets off the train. It’s a story she’s read before. She runs the five minute walk home, hungering for some respite from the searing hot needles of truth that are being jabbed at her all the way.

She gets home, locks the door, and goes to the bathroom. She runs a bath. She drapes the Lemon Skirt over the towel rail, (no sense in ruining it for the next person), gets what she needs from the cabinet and climbs into the water half-dressed.

Peace.