flash fiction by cass costa

Wax Friend Kit

At the undersea depths of my loneliness, I buy a Wax Friend Kit for eighty-nine dollars off Makesy. I’ll explain away the modeled head as just one of my quirks, like the titty shot glasses or entryway shelf of plastic trolls, not that I’m expecting visitors.

The supple beeswax mold is a clementine-colored woman’s bust, with smooth handles for ears and a long, refined nose. Blank orbs stare up at me. A glossy pamphlet gives pic-by-pic instructions for carving unique features like brow hair, wrinkles, and hair patterns with a delicate metal tool like something you’d scrape your teeth with.

A clear baggie filled with dried-up herbs, a palmful of pebbly crystals, and a micro-poem on “instilling spirit” wait at the bottom of the kit.

With a glass of red, and the speaker playing the best hits of the ‘90s, I settle onto a bar stool chair and begin carving. Dusk approaches, little plasticky bits of pale yellow fleck the marble countertop. My hands smell musty-sweet. My head is heavy and light simultaneously. I pick up the spell baggie and figure, Sure, a little completion ritual never hurt anyone. 

And it’s the best eighty-nine dollars I’ve ever spent. Now, Winona’s (the name I’ve given her,) bright smile greets me on the windowsill above my sink as I make coffee in the morning. She’s the first voice I hear calling “hellooo” when I return from hauling groceries. Sometimes, when cooking stir fry, the oils splattering and sizzling, I see her mouth hungrily agape from the corner of my eye.

Knowing Winona is like scratching the surface convo with an acquaintance. I sense there’s more to her, but with every question I ask, and every attempt to grow our friendship, we remain focused on whatever comes to mind from the vantage of her windowsill.

In an episode of “Bear Discovery,” the narrator tells us bears hold wells of evolutionary knowledge within their thick bodies. 

And that’s when I understand what I can do to help her. 

I clear mail, bamboo placemats, and candle votives from my round dining table. I return from the flea market with two brown bags filled to crumpling with beeswax candles. Better than what I could’ve sourced online, although it drains what little I have in my checking account. We eat canned chicken spread on crackers and cubed cheese for two days straight until payday.

Putting Winona on the dining table confuses her. “Why am I moving?” she asks plainly, “I like my spot on the sill — best view in the apartment.”

“Trust me,” I say breathlessly. “You’re gonna wanna be here for this.”

The kitchen looks like a home laboratory. Yellow-orange cubes melt in double boilers on the stove. We spend hours upturning the apartment for molds that can be shaped creatively into limbs: a hollowed-out watermelon, a lampshade, or walnut shells.

A lot goes into making a human that I hadn’t considered before. I find myself naked in front of the shower mirror, debating on how best to shape the gentle curve of the thigh.

Winona is nervous-excited. “Will this work?” she asks, and I don’t see how it could not. I am doubtful of my art skills, but her head is something you might see on display in Paris.

For several nights, I don’t sleep well. Concerns for the outcome play in my mind. What if I mess up a leg, and she hates it? No, that’s not like her, I remind myself and squeeze my eyes shut. When all I can accomplish is micro-naps, I roll out of bed and end up back in the kitchen—Winona’s eyes blinking awake—to work on her body in the witching hours.

Then one day, I’m bringing down the wax on the stove, careful not to boil over, when Winona freaks out. The stream of her words from her dandelion lips is like another language. Her eyes dart from me to cast across the tabletop, with the many wax limbs organized upon the newspaper. “My body’s ready,” she claims, “Look—put that down; everything’s here!”

I rush to the table, sure I’ve forgotten something. Throw the dish towel over my shoulder and begin counting, touching the pieces as we inventory. My heartbeat gallops.“You’re right! It’s time.” We squeal like kids at a sleepover. 

Assembling her takes longer than I’d imagined. Like completing a high-stakes paint-by-number, I’m careful with every move. A hairdryer on high melts two joints together, then I gently pat a poultice of ice to chill the seams. I press my thumb in the cooling wax and smooth it, sometimes leaving a thumbprint here and there.

Winona’s head waits patiently, whispering encouragement and quoting affirmations throughout the day.

We stop only to eat greasy takeout quickly with plastic forks before diving back into work.

It’s the wee hours of the morning. I haven’t slept in two days, hair mats against my scalp, my mouth stinks of wine, and I’ve ignored my body’s cries for rest. Her body stands sturdily on the tile floor, taller than I’d imagined. And because of the fragrant, firm beeswax, she resembles an ancient Roman hunting goddess. 

I look forward to everything we can do together once she’s mobile. Now that she has all the depth a body can give her, who will she be?

The last attachment is her head to her figure, something we’re both grinning wildly about. After the affixation, she doesn’t move. I assume it takes a moment to adjust to a body. 

During this quiet moment, while eyelashes flutter against her skin and her hands tremble over her body, I experience the cold sweat of a half-formed fear. 

I am afraid to give it the solidity and power of putting it into words, but it’s like . . .  experiencing a memory of a friend who is no longer there. Through a cloud of tears, I decide instead to hug her. For now, it means just as much that she’s alive.

God Appeasement

On the fullest full moon this year, it’s with the village’s wishful intention that my beautifully-toned body be chucked cliff-side for God appeasement. 

And no, He doesn’t ask much from His humble servants, just a tasty snack of untouched flesh. 

Yet, when I woke this night, wolves a’howling, I thought, you know who is meatier, mightier, and probably a virgin, too? 

Behold, Kevin—the meal our God never wanted. The beast likely didn’t expect the extra gristle or spaghetti-length leg hair, but, sacrifice He wanted, sacrifice He got. And beggars can’t be choosers if an extra appendage gets thrown in there, too.

Jelly Baby

Jelly Baby wants me to protect it, but I don’t think I can. It hovers one foot in front of me and about two feet above me, looking down with its dimpled cheeks and glossy eyes. It’s waiting—just waiting—for me to fall in love with the soft curve of its jiggly rump or the folds of its gel-mold fat. 

As if it can hear me thinking about it, considering it, it wiggles closer to me. My husband thinks I’ve gone straight cuckoo. Stop watching those horror movies, he says, slapping the banister of our remodeled-yet-still-very-Victorian home. The lights flicker. Jelly Baby doesn’t like that.

Jelly Baby frowns its chubby little cheeks. Its jelly body turns from an opaque quartz to lime green. It’s displeased with the elasticity of the adoption process. Jelly Baby thinks that I’ll be the pushover, that it can win me with its roly-poly looks, that my inherent motherhood will agree to keep it. But my husband, Jelly Baby knows it just might have to trip him down the stairs. 

No, I whisper-yell into the air where Jelly Baby gently floats, slowly rolling like a burnt marshmallow on a stick. It oozing just above where my eyesight reaches fringe bangs. You can’t have Mommy without having Daddy, too, I cajole.

Mostly, I say this to dissuade it from murder in the cold night air. And now, Jelly Baby wails at night because it knows the moon is coming closer and closer, and its window of time to jump from its world to mine is squeezing shut. 

But Jelly Baby is mostly jelly. So, despite my avoidance, it’s begun slipping those tiny grape toes through a crack near the dusty crown molding. And luckily for Jelly Baby, its spirit siblings push the rest of it through, just beside the twirling chandelier. I can’t stop it now. My husband will just have to see. I haven’t been crazy this whole time. Here Jelly Baby comes.