A Perfume Advertisement

She tried on new bodies like trendy outfits, searching for acceptable proportions and colors, but every new ideal turned out to be wrong once she reached it. After ten more years of chiseling, starving, and painting, it seemed she had created her own personal masterpiece, but then her bones punctured her weakened skin like a predator's teeth on its near-dead prey. And in her denial, she looked at her perpetually fluid reflection in the river and thought, "I have made myself as lovely as the sand on the most pristine beaches and now I can fall away with the tiny grains." So, she let herself fall flat on her back and cast her eyes to the sun where they saw nearly nothing but the brightness they had been seeking all along. Then the wind came and lifted her off the ground, promising to carry her to her reward for a life well lived. But instead, it dropped her off on the top of a hill and sprinkled some stray flowers over her and the last voice she heard before she stopped seeing the sun was a declaration:

"You are the living dead. Your self-solutions swallow you like your bones swallow your skin. Now rest in peace, my dear. Relinquish your fear. Now is your chance to get out of here."

It could've been the wind, the sand, or the sun, but it all went soft and it all was done.