The phone pinged and, without thinking, she picked it up and checked the notification.
End of year sale!
She grunted disgusted putting the phone down. She was barely recovering from the pre-Christmas shopping and now it seemed the whole world was on sale.
Everything must go!
The day moved slowly and she enjoyed the quiet, the pause between Christmas and New Year. The celebrations were still happening but were now just a bit muted, preparing for the full blown New Year’s parties.
She had bought no less than four brand new dresses for the New Year’s.
Over the years they had gotten into the habit of joining his friends’ party, and the routine just kept going until now when it had become just what they did, every New Year’s.
Get together in one of the big houses (not theirs, too small), get dressed up nicely, chat, incessantly, with the same people about the same things, feign interest, look forward to the end of the year when the clock struck, and everything just went mad for a second with lights, noise and loud voices.
Sophia took out her dresses and laid them on the bed. They were all so beautiful and so different at the same time. Each told a different story about the woman that had chosen them. Which Sophia do you want to be this time?
She had time to decide, the party was in two days. She caressed the delicate fabrics and was soothed by their softness.
Which Sophia do you want to be this time?
The sophisticated one? The sexy one? The intellectual one? The quirky one?
One item of clothing so many meanings!
The phone pinged again. Sophia picked it up.
New styles added to the sale! Don’t miss out!
Sophia opened the notification and went to the website. (We also have an app!) She closed the app pop-up notification and started browsing the sales page for dresses.
493 results, wow, that is quite a few!
She sorted them by price, low to high, and at the same time with the slow scrolling page she slowly slid down between the dresses on the bed, ending up on the floor leaning on the clothes laden bed.
So many beautiful dresses! Such amazing prices!
It was ridiculous! She found quite a few that she had to have! It would have been stupid not to at those prices!
While adding them to the basket she promised herself not to look at anything else, just the dresses, but then when she reached the bottom of the page and there was nothing to look at she felt a pang of sadness in her chest.
She told herself she should at least check the jeans sales, maybe there was something unmissable there …
Two hours later Sophia emerged from the floor with another significant order on the way. When she got up her eyes avoided looking at the four, brand new dresses spread across the bed. Her shame could not face them.
Sophia felt a void filled with shame choking her. It was an all too familiar feeling and she could survive it only by not thinking about it. She needed to get busy.
This house needs vacuuming!, she told herself while passing through the hallway.
She took out the vacuum and cleaned thoroughly every corner. Once that was done she took out the bins, after that decided she needed to do some laundry, but the basket was a quarter full.
She went to her wardrobe where she pulled out some bags of brand new clothes, still in their packaging, and selected a few to put in the wash. When she was done she was not happy with how many bags were still unopened, so she spent half an hour taking clothes out of bags, cutting labels and then stuffing them back in the wardrobe. If they had no packaging and no labels, they were hers, they were no longer brand new, so there was nothing to reproach her …self.
When the washing machine started humming Sophia was already feeling better, and that morning’s transgression was well hidden in the back of her mind. The house work had been penance enough and she was emerging from the void.
A cup of tea and a spot of TV were well deserved now!
Sat on the couch Sophia glanced at the wall clock. Two more hours till he came home, plenty to have a bit of a rest and then start on dinner.
She avoided the news, too depressing, so she found herself a nice cozy-mystery to watch. It felt like the world was right again and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, the adds came on. Three minutes of beautiful promises and endless possibilities, you could get anything you wanted. It would be stupid not to! Sophia’s phone pinged.
Here to mend broken hearts! Our biggest SALE yet!
She was intrigued by the unusual sales pitch and she opened the email. The void opened wide and swallowed her whole.
***
When the New Year’s party came along, after trying on all the four new dresses, and a couple of others (still new, but without tags), Sophia chose to wear a dress she had for close to five years now. It covered her tummy, her arms, showed just the right amount of cleavage and legs, and being black it was memorable and forgettable at the same time. Maybe she had worn it last year, maybe she hadn’t, there was no way to tell for sure.
He did not comment on her looks, he did not care really about it, and sometimes she wondered if she herself did care. Maybe she did, she was not sure …, maybe she was trying to care and was failing, because she had lost herself in the void that hovered over her.
When they got there the party was already going. They got drinks, he went to chat with his mates while Sophia joined the women doing her best to be the Sophia that belonged.
They all looked so beautiful, Sophia felt ugly and fat in her five year old dress. She wished she had worn one of the new ones. She wished she could hide in the kitchen, but it was full of caterers coming and going, so no place for her there.
Taking advantage of a shuffle in the group she excused herself and went for the loo. She did not really need to go, it was just something to do, to take her out of there.
The house they were in was immense, and soon she was far enough from the party to only hear faint noises coming from it. After going to the loo Sophia, dreaded rejoining the party, so she just pretended she was lost and wandered through the house.
At the end of yet another corridor, she opened a large door and was faced with a room that took her breath away. The most beautiful, and largest, home library Sophia had ever seen. A large, round room with walls lined by solid bookshelves filled with more books than she had ever seen outside an official library.
The books were over spilling on tables and chairs, some were even stacked on the floor. The room was dimly lit, but each chair or couch had a very well placed reading lamp close to it, so wherever you sat you could read comfortably.
As she advanced in the room, Sophia became aware that it was warm, and that a small fire was burning behind the glass of a very well sealed wood burning stove. The room smelled like books and scented candles, although none was in sight.
Heaven
The word popped inside her head by itself. This was heaven. This is how heaven would look like if she got to design it. In comfy clothes of course.
Sophia sat down on a small couch and covered herself with a soft blanket. Inhaling the perfumed air she felt at peace for the first time in a long time. So many books.
Memories of her college years came flooding in. She loved to read then, books were her world and stories and philosophy … her eyes rested on it as if guided by a benevolent being … the book her mother had read the year before Sophia was born, the book that had named her, Sophie’s World.
She picked it up and brought it back to the comfy couch. It was a beautiful hardback. She had never seen a hardback version of it. When she opened it Sophia saw it was an anniversary edition, twenty years since publication. Delicately she opened the book and read the first lines.
Tears slowly made their way down her face. She felt she was nothing, she was disintegrating, holding the book tightly in her arms as if it was the only object grounding her in the tangible world, she wondered, crying, if she could still become something …
At that moment the clock struck the New Year.
Sophia chose to spend it there in the quiet of the library, holding on to the book that had meant so much for her life, and feeling sorry for herself.
Slowly, through tears, the pity turned into compassion and, as the clock beat for the last time, Sophia knew that in the new year she had only on thing to do, to go looking for herself.
SALE = LOVE 😅