FICTION| LIFE LESSONS

No Place to Call Home

Forget about painting the town red; you simply crave a quiet, comfortable life

You only have one shot at life. There are no retakes, so it makes sense to live life to the fullest. Be happy. Spread joy. It’s not enough to be pretty. You’d want to make a difference in someone’s life too. But then again, you don’t always get what you want. Perhaps you are one of the unlucky ones. Despite your good looks, you don’t have someone special in your life. No one to call yours and no place to call home. Sure, you have a roof over your head, but it’s not home unless there is someone to share it with. You are always there for everyone, and yet there is nobody to love you or to take you home. That’s life.

You have nothing much in your life besides your job. So, you throw yourself into the frontline with your fellow comrades. You like to believe that the work you do is good for society, that you are somehow changing the world for the better. Sometimes, you just don’t understand why others seem to have all the luck in the world. While you and your fellow lipstick testers hold the fort, the luckier lipsticks get to stay in their perfectly shiny, sealed boxes, ready to go home with a new owner to their forever home. You don’t even remember your own box. You wonder if you actually had one. It feels like you have been out in the open since the moment you were born. You can’t understand why you’ve been chosen to be a tester, but life is like that sometimes. Some of you are returns by customers, while others were selected as testers right from the beginning. Thankfully, your job isn’t too demanding, as most of the time, you just stand around and chat with your friends. The only exception is during that nightmare season humans call sales.

Now, let’s talk about the humans. There are two groups as far as you can tell. A small group seems to live in the store. They move slowly like sloths and honestly, you can’t distinguish one from the other. They wear the same outfits, sport identical hairstyles and have the same grumpy expressions. Are they manufacturing defects? They have labels on their shirts, similar to the ones you have on your cover. However, none of their names seem to describe their appearances or special skills. Whereas you and your friends have lush, descriptive names such as “Sugar Bomb: Guaranteed a Second Date”, “Nude Honey That Tastes as Good as It Looks”, and “Merlot Kisses Stain Lips, Not Clothes”. Rumour has it that there was once a legendary lipstick called “So Red Hot You Can’t Wear It to Work”.

As for the other group of humans — the robotic sloths call them the customers — these would be the potential owners for the lucky lipsticks. Some are good, some are bad and some are downright horrible. You like the ones who gently swipe you on the back of their hands. You could tell right away that they are kind and loving. You like them, but meeting them also leaves you a bit heartbroken because it serves as a reminder that you’ll never have someone like that in your life.

Some apply you straight to their lips, which can be a bit disgusting as you worry about the germs left behind. Especially in the post-Covid world. On the other hand, there are some who are overzealous about hygiene by removing a huge portion of your core before use. You dread this as it shortens your lifespan considerably. Not to mention that it tickles badly when someone sprays disinfectant on you and wipes you all over with a piece of tissue paper.

Then there are those who like to mix colours by applying one after another. You’d think that fifty different shades should be sufficient for someone to find a colour that suits them! Some people are just fussy. You really hate this as it leaves you stained. You then turn into a weird colour, so the next customer wrongly assumes you’re that gross shade of red. It won’t affect you directly, but the boxed ones that you represent would lose the chance to go to a good home. It’s your duty to give them a happily-ever-after. Of course, you wish you could take their place, but one shouldn’t covet things that aren’t theirs. Also, you’ve tried to rip the plastic from the nearest box to take it for yourself, but it proves to be difficult without hands. Some lipsticks have all the luck!

Every time there is a shipment of new items, you start sweating. Well, not literally, as you don’t actually have sweat ducts. You know what happens to testers when the current products are discontinued. You’ve seen it happen to your other beauty product friends. The boxed ones go to the sales bin, and testers like yourself are discarded. Disposed of like garbage. You shudder at the thought of your life being snuffed out prematurely. You can’t even plot your escape. A backup plan in case it really happens. That’s the challenge of being an inanimate object.

It’s a big world out there. Even though you are stuck on a shelf, you believe that you can still make a difference in someone’s life, no matter how small. At least before you expire. You wonder what the end of life is like. Will it hurt? And then what happens next? Do you just disappear into thin air? Is there a special place in heaven for someone like you? Or, do you reincarnate as a regular lipstick in your next life?

Each time these thoughts intrude your mind, you push them aside. Feeling sorry for yourself never leads to anything good. After all, there are worse things in life than being a lipstick tester. You’ve never met them, but you’ve heard they’re called the toilet roll.

This story is my response to Witchy’s question in the latest HHH newsletter-ish: “What do you think it’s like to be a tube of lipstick?” Thank you, Liberty Forrest, Author for this wonderful Pub!

I’d recommend this fun and sweet story by Cristina Cattai which I enjoyed immensely.

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