Skin Care

By J. S. O'Keefe

Claudia once told me she splashed cold water on her face twice a day to prevent wrinkles. "Ice cold," she said. "I buy cleansed water from Mobile."

I didn’t know if she meant a personal-care company or Mobile, Alabama. Neither made sense, which made it more convincing.

Back then she was an accomplished Broadway extra, the kind who could stand in the background and still influence the entire scene. She radiated authority, as if background work were a sacred office.

Months passed. I tried the regimen myself, though my tap water never felt anything but cold. Plus, I'm a guy. Wrinkles add character to a man's face.

Years later I saw Claudia again.

I had flown to South Dakota for pheasant hunting. This is how it works: you wake up, check your email, see a promotional message offering fifty percent off Turkey/Wild Goose/Pheasant Packages, and by afternoon you're booking a flight to Sioux Falls.

The lodge was full of people attending mandatory safety training. Men discussed muzzle velocities and hunting dog breeds as though they were talking about the new exhibit at the Guggenheim.

In the middle of that prairie confusion, I saw her. She stood within a cluster of people moving as a single wave. At the centre was a man who looked carved from granite. And beside him was Claudia, holding a silver-plated iPad with calm authority.

She had aged. Perhaps the cold water regimen had been a hoax all along; an elaborate placebo rooted in a misunderstanding of Alabama or the S&P 500.

I tried to greet her, but each time I approached, someone stopped me. "Don't get too close. We're very serious about personal space and territorial disputes." I thought that kind of crazy talk only existed in Mafia movies. After the third warning, I gave up.

Later she came to me. "I'm glad you accepted the invitation," she said. "By Thursday I can tell you your first assignment."

"Assignment? It's hunting. The bird rises, you shoot."

She nodded. "Yes. The bird rises, and you shoot." Then she walked away.

A minute later the granite man clapped his hands, and all of us headed to the fields. That was Monday.

My Mobile-water priestess had apparently risen to a much higher rank in the last few years. Some extras outgrow their trade. They become stars, or they leave the stage entirely, or they become legal advisors to outdoorsmen family syndicates in the Dakotas.

On Thursday evening, Claudia handed me a small box. "Everything you need is in there. A billion-dollar food stamp project and up-to-date info on port call regulations. Don't mess it up. First impressions matter most." She added, "Handle the cellphone and the pen very gingerly. Both are pre-fingerprinted."

I wanted to ask what the hell I had been pulled into, but she walked away before I could speak.

Even in my confusion, I noticed the grey in her hair and how deep her wrinkles were. The kind that comes from more than age.

I opened the box later in my room. Inside was a phone, a pen, and a manilla envelope thick with documents I had serious difficulty to understand.

Through the window I could see Claudia smoking at the lodge’s entrance. She looked smaller out there, older.

Life is unpredictable, and Mobile water is apparently not what it's cracked up to be.

About the Author

J. S. O’Keefe is a scientist, trilingual translator and writer.

His short stories and poems have been published in Roi Faineant, Scribes*MICRO, Every Day Fiction, AntipodeanSF, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50WS, Friday Flash Fiction, Medium, Paragraph Planet, 6S, WENSUM, Spillwords, Satire, etc.

You can find out more at his website: <https://www.szjohnny.net/>