Mallory - Drabble
Added 2025-05-06 16:38:00 +0000 UTCAka: a piece of a whole
1912
The coins burned a hole in her pocket. She knew the whacking her momma would give her when she opened her purse tomorrow and found the money missing.
But she hadn’t gone to the pictures in so long. How could she pass up the opportunity now? She could endure the belt and some ear pulling if it meant sitting in front a screen 50 feet high.
A magical thing happens to her whenever she’s at the theatre. She gets lost in the moving images. As vivid as it were true she sees herself enacting the roles on screen.
She forgets where she is and can finally be someone else. Not boring old Martha with mousy blonde hair and old dresses that hang off her like the sacks of grain her father stored in the shed when he was alive.
She dreamed of having enough dresses that she would go a year without ever repeating an outfit, of soft bedding, dolls with big doll houses, all the cake she could eat and all the pictures she could watch before she went blind.
People said she had a nice face. If she has the acting talent to back it up she could go far away from Indiana. Never have to see her momma nor be Martha ever again. She would be someone else with a fancy last name like Fitzgerald.
She could fall in love like the stars do. Sometimes she dreams of a boy who will come into her room and take her away. That love must be real because why would the pictures ever lie to her?
No, they’re the only thing she can trust.
