Violet climbed the polished concrete steps to the eighth floor. She passed the busy inhabitants of the building carrying large, ornate flower displays down the stairs or arranging roses, tulips and hyacinths by color into large buckets in the open areas. The colors provided a jolt of life against the worn, industrial wooden floors and once-white walls.
The aroma of flowers followed her as she climbed. She kept her sunglasses on and let her hair fall over her eyes to avoid having to smile or talk to anyone. Her clothes weighed heavy on her small frame. Violet noticed a delicate trail of petals detached from the stems, scattered off to the side of the stairs. It looked like a small blizzard of chrysanthemums.
She turned the key and pushed the heavy door open with her shoulder. She walked into the large space and put her bag down her desk, which was covered with dog-eared books, unfinished letters and notebooks. She sighed and looked around. The sunset filled the windows and cast calm, fading light on the room.
Her skin felt cold under her clothes. A chill surged from her feet up her body. She removed her coat anyway; then her boots.
“I wondered when you’d be back,” the voice came from a high-backed chair facing the windows. The chair spun around and she saw Philip sitting there, plucking the petals from a flower and watching her as the petals dropped to the floor. He was backlit by the fading light, so it was hard to read his expression, but Violet could feel him looking at her.
“You look pale,” Philip said, not rising to greet her.
“I am pale,” Violet said, lifting her shirt up over her head, then touching her stomach. Her skin was slowing turning into silver armor. She removed her jeans. Her feet and legs had turned to silver metal.
Violet turned to face Philip. The sunset reflected off of her body, turning the silver into shiny mauves and blue-purples. Philip watched in horror as her skin morphed from peach, supple softness into hard, shiny metal.
“I must thank you,” Violet said, walking over to Philip as her chest and neck transformed. “Yours was the last heartache I’ll have to bear. Now I have no more swords to die upon.”
Violet sat down across from Philip. She stared at him with her now steel-grey eyes. Philip watched silently as the metamorphosis ended, and the woman he once loved disappeared.
[Three Word Wednesday post using the words detach, jolt and surge.]
