(c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
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(c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Fri 12 Dec 2008, 9:04 pm
Title:The Prada Baglady
Rating: PG for themes
Author: Mikey
Status: Incomplete/chaptered
Warnings: Sad enough that I almost cried writing it.
Exerpt: They think the Prada Baglady is in her fifties. Dear old sweet thing, they’ll say, their voices cold as the slate grey, steel grey, silver grey of their work suits, she’s just not quite with it.
--
The Prada Baglady works at 1038 west 26th. Every morning, she wakes up at 5 am. She uncaps her one tube of lipstick and smears it across her thin, weathered lips. She scrapes a razor down the head of her three-inch plain black eyeliner and rubs it into eyes that bulge out from their dark purple bags. She pulls hair that is too-early greying into a neat bun. It will be flying wildly around her face by the time she makes it to west 26th Street. She puts on the business suit she bought for four dollars yesterday from the op-shop three blocks from her house. She’ll tuck her house keys into the one bag she owns. Then she’ll press a gentle kiss to her fingers and touch it to the door of her daughter’s bedroom. Five am is too early for children to be awake.
The Prada Baglady works in an office block. Her workmates will ask her if she got a new shade of lipstick. They’ll say she’s looking especially nice today. They’ll smile, cakefaced and toothy, not with their heavily rimmed eyes. She will just pull her thin, aged lips into the closest semblance of a smile she can manage any more. They think the Prada Baglady is in her fifties. Dear old sweet thing, they’ll say, their voices cold as the slate grey, steel grey, silver grey of their work suits, she’s just not quite with it. The Prada Baglady isn’t fifty. She’s not forty. The Prada Baglady is thirty two years, seven months and nine days old. Nobody knows when her birthday is. Nobody has actually asked her before.
At lunch, the Prada Baglady is reading the same book for the fifth time. It was a quarter from the store she buys her suits from. It’s a compilation of poetry from history’s greatest writers. At lunch, she sits by the 23rd storey window and eats her sandwich of plain bread with a single slice of cheese, and reads the poems, and sometimes she looks out of the window at the grey sky and she smiles as if it’s not all she can see out there. Her coworkers are discussing their husbands’ obsession with the stock market, the cost of their children’s schooling and new, probably-tested-on-animals anti-aging crèmes and ointments over their tasteless, plastic salads. As they babble about their perfect, 99% fat free lives, the Prada Baglady in the corner has her eyes shut, humming.
When the Prada Baglady leaves the office, at five forty three, she catches sight of something in a wastebasket. It’s a thin, silver bracelet. It’s broken at the clasp, as if it’s been caught on something and snapped in an attempt to yank it free. She stoops, barely wincing at the pain in her back, and her long, elegant fingers grasp it. She tucks the chain into the pocked of her $2.50 of two-for-four-dollars skirt as she straightens. On her way out of the building, the Prada Baglady waves to the doorman. He smiles at her, opening the door, and she smiles back as she steps through it. She’s the only one who will let him open it for her any more.
The Prada Baglady gets home at ten minutes to eight. She takes her house key out of her one handbag, and unlocks door number 18, fourth story in her apartment block. It creaks open, in a sort of welcome home gesture. It clicks gently closed behind her. She places her handbag down on the table, steps out of her $6 shoes, and pads down the passageway to her Daughter’s room. The pushes the door open, gently, and sits down on the mattress.
“Amanda sweetie? I got you something.” She reaches into her pocket, and pulls out the glimmering, twirling chain. She lays it gently down on her daughter’s bedside table. Then, exactly the same as this morning, she presses a kiss to her fingers – only this time, she presses withered, tiny, and somehow still dignified fingers to the photo in the frame next to the chain – of a younger, smiling Prada Baglady and her three year old daughter.
“Sleep tight, darling,” she whispers, backing out, closing the door gently, quietly.
The Prada Baglady’s mattress is thin and lumpy. She doesn’t complain. Ever. Not once.
Rating: PG for themes
Author: Mikey
Status: Incomplete/chaptered
Warnings: Sad enough that I almost cried writing it.
Exerpt: They think the Prada Baglady is in her fifties. Dear old sweet thing, they’ll say, their voices cold as the slate grey, steel grey, silver grey of their work suits, she’s just not quite with it.
--
The Prada Baglady works at 1038 west 26th. Every morning, she wakes up at 5 am. She uncaps her one tube of lipstick and smears it across her thin, weathered lips. She scrapes a razor down the head of her three-inch plain black eyeliner and rubs it into eyes that bulge out from their dark purple bags. She pulls hair that is too-early greying into a neat bun. It will be flying wildly around her face by the time she makes it to west 26th Street. She puts on the business suit she bought for four dollars yesterday from the op-shop three blocks from her house. She’ll tuck her house keys into the one bag she owns. Then she’ll press a gentle kiss to her fingers and touch it to the door of her daughter’s bedroom. Five am is too early for children to be awake.
The Prada Baglady works in an office block. Her workmates will ask her if she got a new shade of lipstick. They’ll say she’s looking especially nice today. They’ll smile, cakefaced and toothy, not with their heavily rimmed eyes. She will just pull her thin, aged lips into the closest semblance of a smile she can manage any more. They think the Prada Baglady is in her fifties. Dear old sweet thing, they’ll say, their voices cold as the slate grey, steel grey, silver grey of their work suits, she’s just not quite with it. The Prada Baglady isn’t fifty. She’s not forty. The Prada Baglady is thirty two years, seven months and nine days old. Nobody knows when her birthday is. Nobody has actually asked her before.
At lunch, the Prada Baglady is reading the same book for the fifth time. It was a quarter from the store she buys her suits from. It’s a compilation of poetry from history’s greatest writers. At lunch, she sits by the 23rd storey window and eats her sandwich of plain bread with a single slice of cheese, and reads the poems, and sometimes she looks out of the window at the grey sky and she smiles as if it’s not all she can see out there. Her coworkers are discussing their husbands’ obsession with the stock market, the cost of their children’s schooling and new, probably-tested-on-animals anti-aging crèmes and ointments over their tasteless, plastic salads. As they babble about their perfect, 99% fat free lives, the Prada Baglady in the corner has her eyes shut, humming.
When the Prada Baglady leaves the office, at five forty three, she catches sight of something in a wastebasket. It’s a thin, silver bracelet. It’s broken at the clasp, as if it’s been caught on something and snapped in an attempt to yank it free. She stoops, barely wincing at the pain in her back, and her long, elegant fingers grasp it. She tucks the chain into the pocked of her $2.50 of two-for-four-dollars skirt as she straightens. On her way out of the building, the Prada Baglady waves to the doorman. He smiles at her, opening the door, and she smiles back as she steps through it. She’s the only one who will let him open it for her any more.
The Prada Baglady gets home at ten minutes to eight. She takes her house key out of her one handbag, and unlocks door number 18, fourth story in her apartment block. It creaks open, in a sort of welcome home gesture. It clicks gently closed behind her. She places her handbag down on the table, steps out of her $6 shoes, and pads down the passageway to her Daughter’s room. The pushes the door open, gently, and sits down on the mattress.
“Amanda sweetie? I got you something.” She reaches into her pocket, and pulls out the glimmering, twirling chain. She lays it gently down on her daughter’s bedside table. Then, exactly the same as this morning, she presses a kiss to her fingers – only this time, she presses withered, tiny, and somehow still dignified fingers to the photo in the frame next to the chain – of a younger, smiling Prada Baglady and her three year old daughter.
“Sleep tight, darling,” she whispers, backing out, closing the door gently, quietly.
The Prada Baglady’s mattress is thin and lumpy. She doesn’t complain. Ever. Not once.
Last edited by believe. on Fri 27 Feb 2009, 5:09 am; edited 3 times in total (Reason for editing : by the way)
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Re: (c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by proust. Fri 12 Dec 2008, 9:40 pm
So, the poor Prada Baglady is lonely and worships her dead, well in any case absent, daughter
?
Okay, maybe I'm being heartless, I'll rethink my position.
Jorge Luis Borges has a short story entitled "Emma Zunz", it's not one of his famous works, I don't think it was published in Ficciones, but I read it in Labyrinths. It's about a young girl who works in a textile factory, set in 1922, it's, in a way, the mother of the Prada Baglady. She has a normal quiet life, you could say a stereotypical one, until she finds out that her father -who had fled the country because he was accused of embezzlement- killed himself. She then carefully plans to avenge her father. I will not reveal the rest of the story, as I hope you will read it. It's a charming story, like most of Borges' in any case.
Why I mentioned this story? Because it shows why I expected something else from this story -I'm not saying that it's a bad story, I just expected something else [something more?]. We all know the Emma Zunz and Prada Bagladies, we see them pass by us everyday and because they are so ordinary [?] we expect them to be extraordinary. I like mystery, a lot, I love solving puzzles, but I need clues. I think, and it is purely a personal opinion, that the Prada Baglady's life itself posses less interest to me -could I dare to call myself a reader?- than what events and tragedies affected her life.
So, she misses her daughter. We all miss someone, why is it important that this Prada Baglady -and I have yet to decide if I like the name or not, there are so many precise details in the story [her address, when she gets up in the morning, etc.] it seems strange that her name, and characters come to life once they get names just like people, is omitted- misses this daughter.
-shrug-
Again, I don't think it's a bad story, it just feels incomplete.
I like to criticize and let stories become real -don't they seem more real when you discuss them? well they do for me, and I just hope you don't mind it.
?
Okay, maybe I'm being heartless, I'll rethink my position.
Jorge Luis Borges has a short story entitled "Emma Zunz", it's not one of his famous works, I don't think it was published in Ficciones, but I read it in Labyrinths. It's about a young girl who works in a textile factory, set in 1922, it's, in a way, the mother of the Prada Baglady. She has a normal quiet life, you could say a stereotypical one, until she finds out that her father -who had fled the country because he was accused of embezzlement- killed himself. She then carefully plans to avenge her father. I will not reveal the rest of the story, as I hope you will read it. It's a charming story, like most of Borges' in any case.
Why I mentioned this story? Because it shows why I expected something else from this story -I'm not saying that it's a bad story, I just expected something else [something more?]. We all know the Emma Zunz and Prada Bagladies, we see them pass by us everyday and because they are so ordinary [?] we expect them to be extraordinary. I like mystery, a lot, I love solving puzzles, but I need clues. I think, and it is purely a personal opinion, that the Prada Baglady's life itself posses less interest to me -could I dare to call myself a reader?- than what events and tragedies affected her life.
So, she misses her daughter. We all miss someone, why is it important that this Prada Baglady -and I have yet to decide if I like the name or not, there are so many precise details in the story [her address, when she gets up in the morning, etc.] it seems strange that her name, and characters come to life once they get names just like people, is omitted- misses this daughter.
-shrug-
Again, I don't think it's a bad story, it just feels incomplete.
I like to criticize and let stories become real -don't they seem more real when you discuss them? well they do for me, and I just hope you don't mind it.
Last edited by kafka. on Fri 12 Dec 2008, 10:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Re: (c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Fri 12 Dec 2008, 10:00 pm
No, fully understandable
It's actually not the sort of thing I normally write -shrug- and I dont take anything personally because it's the first in... at least six months, maybe more.
The name is actually something I do often. I prefer for someone to empathise with a character's situation, because if you give the character a name and a face, it's not so much understanding as sympathy, and thats not what I was going for, here.
I guess the point of it is that the Prada Baglady doesn't complain not out of humility or humbleness, but because she sees no reason for it, for two reasons - that one, it won't change anything, and two, in a sad way, she believes the life she leads is still better than those of her coworkers. Of course, I didn't say that in the story. It's definitely going to be chaptered, though.
And, there's a very good reason this prada baglady -nod- but I'm working on that, now.
It's actually not the sort of thing I normally write -shrug- and I dont take anything personally because it's the first in... at least six months, maybe more.
The name is actually something I do often. I prefer for someone to empathise with a character's situation, because if you give the character a name and a face, it's not so much understanding as sympathy, and thats not what I was going for, here.
I guess the point of it is that the Prada Baglady doesn't complain not out of humility or humbleness, but because she sees no reason for it, for two reasons - that one, it won't change anything, and two, in a sad way, she believes the life she leads is still better than those of her coworkers. Of course, I didn't say that in the story. It's definitely going to be chaptered, though.
And, there's a very good reason this prada baglady -nod- but I'm working on that, now.
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Re: (c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by proust. Fri 12 Dec 2008, 10:29 pm
So, I should watch out for more chapters? Good. I could've sworn that it was a standalone.
You have yet to convince me with the name, but maybe the next chapter will.
I don't think you need to explain yourself -or worse your story- to me in a comment, that's not what I'm aiming for. But in a way to explain the story to yourself, rethink the story. Most times when you start a story you are not completely sure of how the story will be. I'm not a writer, I don't claim to be, I'm a reader and my purpose is to find good stories to read. I don't want to pick flaws, and don't dare to believe I'd even bother to finish reading a story that I found badly written.
I think you're a good writer, but in time you could become an exceptionally good writer.
Just one last thing, why write such short chapters?
You have yet to convince me with the name, but maybe the next chapter will.
I don't think you need to explain yourself -or worse your story- to me in a comment, that's not what I'm aiming for. But in a way to explain the story to yourself, rethink the story. Most times when you start a story you are not completely sure of how the story will be. I'm not a writer, I don't claim to be, I'm a reader and my purpose is to find good stories to read. I don't want to pick flaws, and don't dare to believe I'd even bother to finish reading a story that I found badly written.
I think you're a good writer, but in time you could become an exceptionally good writer.
Just one last thing, why write such short chapters?
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Re: (c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Fri 12 Dec 2008, 10:32 pm
Tnext chapter doesn't focus on her -shrug-
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Re: (c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by the way Fri 12 Dec 2008, 10:33 pm
Mikeeeeey.
My favorite part was the start. Like, when you described her sharpening her eyeliner. And how she does it.
So simple, but it says a lot.
So normal, so routine.
Love, also, how she doesn't really have a name.
You have that modern fairytale but not really quality tone in your stories.
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Re: (c) The Prada Baglady (PG)
by Galileo Figaro Sat 13 Dec 2008, 8:23 pm
I teared up when I got to the photo part. 
The way ('The Way', haha ) the story is narrated, it's as though the person doesn't really care for Prada Baglady. Everything is told 'as is', emotionless, but it just adds to the bleakness of it all.
I like how there are so many little details -- they tell you a lot more about the character, but don't overload your brain. It all sounds very well thought-out.
I was surprised to find out that it's not a oneshot, though. It doesn't really need more, it's perfect as it is. But that's not to say I'd say no to more, it's just that it looks like a oneshot.
The way ('The Way', haha
) the story is narrated, it's as though the person doesn't really care for Prada Baglady. Everything is told 'as is', emotionless, but it just adds to the bleakness of it all.I like how there are so many little details -- they tell you a lot more about the character, but don't overload your brain. It all sounds very well thought-out.
I was surprised to find out that it's not a oneshot, though. It doesn't really need more, it's perfect as it is. But that's not to say I'd say no to more, it's just that it looks like a oneshot.
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