I'm not going to explain flashing.... other than to say it doesn't have to involve a raincoat and penis' , just know it counts as my write the book challenge...
"The laden shopping bats..."
The laden shopping bats bounced their sonic radars from the walls keeping her awake yet asleep in her eternal shopping nightmare. She avoided sleep in the same way that she avoided reality. Her cupboards bulged as did the underside of her bath and the mattress that strained at the “goodies” hidden beneath. She didn't regard the shopping as her problem, it made her feel good, powerful and in control of her life. It was only when she was forced to regard her purchases, often made in the worst peaks of her mania that she realised that this was yet another failing, coping mechanism she used to get through the daily grind the rest of them called living.
The bats echoed their screams against the walls of her brain, her conscience, urging her to buy those heels, that dress, that bag, knowing that she would never wear them, just hide them, price tags still attached, screaming out her failure as the woman that the world thought she “ought” to be…
She tossed and turned begging them into silence, conscious of the noise that her secretive purchases were making from the places that she had stashed them, far worse than the noise of the bats that she couldn't silence. She wasn't ready to face those demons, those embarrassments and to face up to her addiction that made her feel like a functioning human being. It didn't matter that she didn't like what she had bought it mattered that it was a bargain, a once in a life time, an opportunity not to be missed…. Making her a better, more functioning individual.
She often wished that she could sleep the restful sleep that her family did, that she didn’t spend the night trolling Facebook, the internet or any source of comfort that kept her awake. Only in the night when the bats were most active most demanding most convincing was she ironically able to keep them at bay. In her mind shopping online at night equated a problem; like drinking alone or signing up to an online casino.
This night, this night was different somehow, she could feel the screams of the bats laden with wonder and promise, sense them approaching, but tonight, this one night she felt that she might have the courage to fend them off, to stand up for herself and to tell them no. She knew that if she missed this chance, avoided it like so many times before that the destructive cycle she had fallen into would continue with no chance of redemption.
She needed to face her fear and she knew this no matter how frightened it made her, the need to uncover those purchases was the key to the undoing, one pair of shoes at a time, one diamond encrusted must have handbag, the frocks that no matter how much weight she lost couldn't justify the expense or the guilt that came with the price label. As she reached for the costume jewelry; shocked at the living room showing her excesses that she couldn't possibly have afforded, her hands clasped around the bat shaped broach that she didn't remember purchasing in the first place. The broach echoed the noises that she heard in the hazes of her unsleeping state, screaming out to her that she needed to hide the purchases she had strewn everywhere and to continue the cyclical pattern of shopping she had created, succumbed to; that made her a “real” human being like she had a right to belong to society. It was in that moment that she experienced her first moments of clarity, the insight she had been missing for so long, she still had no idea where that first laden bat had come from, but she knew in order to change she had to throw it out, price tag and all in order to conquer her negative coping mechanism and to face reality.
(651 I broke the 500 word flash count but I haven’t flashed in a long long time)
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