She looks through a window. This particular window had been there her entire life. Its reflective nature made it almost too bright to bear but she had to see the so-called wonders that the world presumed it to obtain. Girls with shiny ribbon-like curls flourish in the daylight. Their eyes shining like stars, clean, ironed clothes the color of a stormy night sky. She sat in her cold chair, frizzy hair pulled back in a messy low ponytail, the silence of reality she remorsed with.
That next morning she woke up extra early. Turning her once untouched straightening iron on the highest heat, she fried her hair. When she had finished, every last hair stood paralyzed next to one another. She studied herself in the mirror. A carbon copy. Perfect. Surely she would now be as pretty as those girls through the window.
What she saw in the window that morning was not what she saw in the mirror. Draped on the girls' perfectly contoured backs were luscious curls, effortlessly bouncing as they danced. She ran her fingers through her straightened hair in disgust.
That next morning she woke up even earlier for the curling iron she had was far too small to form the thick bouncy curls which the girls obtained. She drove to her local store to purchase a new and better model. Then back at home she spent hours perfecting the style until her hair looked identical to the girls. Her hair was perfect.
Or so she thought. When she looked out the window pinned up high atop the girls' heads were slicked back ponytails, tight and clean. Her own hair now looked repulsive next to theirs. Hairs uncontrollably sprawled on her back. Frizzy and dry, she couldn't bear to keep it how it was. She took a spare hair tie from her wrist and smoothed her hair back with her fingers. Then pulling it so tight her head throbbed she secured it.
Oh how she hated that ponytail. She didn't have her hair hanging by her ears to warm them and her head ached from the pressure. But as her mom always said beauty is pain, so her discomfort didn't matter, right? But what had been beautiful yesterday wasn't painful. The constant comparison and pressure to comply. What was beautiful one day was ugly the next. She wondered if the girls through the window also didn't like their hair. Maybe they also had a window they were looking through, its contents so perfect you always were wanting to change yourself to be like it. She had to find out. So as she unlatched the window she climbed out careful not to scratch or ding it.
The street was empty.