SHORT FICTION
WonderGirl keeps her thoughts in a Pez dispenser beside her bed. The plastic Pluto stands at attention; neck full of sugared lollies and head crammed with dreary ideas. Giving him a well-deserved wink, WonderGirl shrugs on an ill-fitting jacket and strides out of her house.
WonderGirl coasts into her local shop and buys lollies that taste like toothpaste, three tomatoes and wine from Con the grocer.
“When are you going to settle down, get married, WonderGirl?” he says packing her purchases into her green nylon bag.
“When I find my Superman,” she smiles, handing over a fist full of shrapnel.
WonderGirl goes home, paints her toe nails, ignores the television and falls asleep on her thrift shop couch.
She wakes up in her Peter Alexander Pyjamas and wonders why the autumn morning looks exactly like a winter night. She feels old, but won’t admit it, and secretly wonders how long she can keep things up.
WonderGirl goes to the pub, gulps beer from smudged glasses, and doesn’t want to go home when they turn the lights up. She hides in the guys’ toilets and stares at her name written on the back of the grimy stall. Apparently someone thinks she’s a good time, and was kind enough to leave her number for anyone to call.
WonderGirl lives in the middle of her street. Her neighbours stare and whisper “she can move through time”.
Reading The Age and thinking she is smart, WonderGirl struggles with the pages and wishes they didn’t make them so darn big. She scrunches her way to the travel section. Suddenly she is sitting in Japan again, slurping noodles and dreaming of home.
The mismatched steaks in WonderGirl’s hair could tell a few stories of lonely car rides, books ready by firelight and stray men with straying hands. “I’ve been there, done that,” she thinks, putting it all down to what her mother calls “experience”.
When she takes the train to visit her mother, WonderGirl regrets it as soon as she stepped onto the front porch. “I don’t know who you are anymore,” her mother blurts out when she greets her daughter he doesn’t look as young, as happy, as she used to. WonderGirl reminds her mum of the inked name that used to get imprinted onto the tag of her school dress every year. Her mother rolls her grey eyes. “But Girl,” her mother starts, but WonderGirl is already halfway down the garden path.
WonderGirl is tired. Her breath is thick. She just wants to go home.
WonderGirl pours hot water over her fourth tea bag of the day while standing over the sink in her renters delight. WonderGirl thinks of her mother, of a time when she wore long socks and polished shoes, of a time when expectations were only something she would have to live up to in the future. The tea bag goes funk in the bottom of her empty garbage bin, and shuffles with her cuppa in hand, to bed.
WonderGirl lifts the head of her thought-filled Pez dispenser. She drops half her name inside and lets it snap shut.
WonderGirl falls asleep and wishes she was something she is not; girl.
