Brona's Show of Fashion


Written by Septia.


“Outta the way, some've us smell like ancient garbage and need ah new look.” Brona whipped past the dazed broad standing in the middle of the street, shuffling towards her goal across the street: a fashion boutique. With an ooze of putrid vapours lingering around her patch-worked clothing, the woman entered the store. She turned a corner to the perfume isle and fumbled for one bottle after the other, sniffing along the edge of each intricately sculpted container in the manner a hobo gourmand evaluates a trash-sandwich. 
	“Orksch,” an employee approached her after scoffing, nostrils pinched. “Did you just crawl out of the dump?” 
	“Yeah. You'd think at least the rent's woulnd't a stunk there,” Brona commented whilst spraying a ‘Youmella’ perfume down her throat, harking as she spat out the sample of the eviscerating alcohol, “bud was I wrong.” Brona finished her sentence by tossing out the perfume bottle. 
	“Hey youcaanm-.” The clerk said mid catch, She got a moment to make sure the bottle was unharmed, before a volley of 'sampled' fragrance bottles hurled in her direction. 
	“Bleh, yuck, tssk, this one never got a chance,” Brona mumbled after each sample, tearing them off the shelves and lobbing them back in thee same motion. 
	The clerk followed her close by, shifting and grunting in strain of saving the merchandise. 
	“Here I'd thought this get the stank outta my clothes,” Brona mumbled in disdain as she got to the end f the isle; her nose scrunched up at a whiff of her wrist. She tried to brush the scent of the melange of straps and rags she called clothing. The ground beneath her pelted with grime, dust, and various trinkets that had gotten lodged in her clothing during her previous escapades. 
	the shadow of the clerk loomed behind her, raising with her arms full of bottles. 
	“Miss,” the word whistled through clenched teeth, “would you kindly get out, before I call pest control.” 
	“Yeah bet their toxin'd fit right on your shelves,” Brona shrugged and turned the corner. 
	“I am not kifdanaaawhrhg-.” In her next step, the disgruntled clerk tripped over a horseshoe that had fallen out of Brona's melange, the perpetrator already in another isle pulling down hats fart to lower over her brow, as a cavalcade of crashes launched from the fallen servicewoman. 


“This cutie could use a haircut,” she proposed to herself in the mirror, “but then I'd hafta get rid of my tangles, n' they are all too cute.” 
	“Miss…” 
	Brona peeked from her reflection, at the perfume doused redhead stampeding towards her. 
	“You could freshen up a bit, hear what I'm saying?” Brona interrupted the clerk's attempt tat speech, spitting on a few rags in her palm and wiping them across the redhead’s cheeks, leaving them streaked in the drool mixed silt still clinging to Brona's attire. 
	The clerk was fuming. But then, took in a deep breath. “Miss, if you do not vacate the store within three minutes, I'll have to-.” 
	-Crrgssh- The crunch of glass cut through the atmosphere of rage. 
	The two turned their head towards the perfume isle, behind the shelves a figure rose to the accompaniment of granulating glass. Light bounced out of the figure's transparent husk, tinted by the fluid of magenta sloshing through their frame. The figure stood vaguely humanoid, with ties… ears, or hair, brushing against the ceiling. It turns its head down. -Thhccpt- A streak of jet black flashed through the air, a dome of deepened onyx crashing towards the duo. 
	-Phwowop- Brona opened her umbrella, the blow deflected, arching along the edge of the curved fabric and slamming into the shelves behind. -Ckrkrsth-krlrlsth- Shards of mirrored glass fell from the fractured frame. Brona peeked at the bulb, reminiscent of the atomiser bulb on a perfume bottle, only this one’s top morphed and contracted as it withdrew from the impact. Brona retratched the parapluie -Phoowf-. 
	“You can ave this,” Brona thrust the parapluie into the clerk's grasp after folding it up, heading towards the back of the store. 
	“Wh-what? How did that thing get here?” 
	“Beats me.” 
	“H-haaammpgh-. Mmwprrhg. Mwmprght…” 
	Brona watched the black bulb strike down at the clerk, its rim parting to encapsulate the woman, the rubber hose attaching the bulb to the glass sculpture engorging with the veiled protrusions of the redhead's silhouette, her thrashing making the specular lights of the polished rubber dance over rising and sifting bulges. 
	“Yeah, I'm out.” Brona snatched a new parapluie and exited through the back door, just as a familiar -Phoooumpf- of an extending parapluie reverberating through the air, and the hose distended with the conical mass of an umbrella. A wheeze and veil of glass scraping together only hastening her decision to vacate the premises, just as she was asked. 


~ 1 ~


Whereas people had previously given her odd glances for her stench, there was not a clear permitted surrounding Brona which the hive of street patrons veered from. 
	“Pheeh, just a bunch of losers,” Brona mumbled, making her way to a graffiti cleaning van, and launcing her foot in a kick to the connected fire hydrant. -Kllnnggh- The resonance in the metal travelled up the hose, the pipe dislodging further up van – after the pressurised water mixed in with detergent – and the pipe dislodged, casting a torrent of lathered water onto the wall, where Brona strategically placed herself. 
	“Harbalglgrls,” she gargled few mouthfulls of the steamy suds-brew, twirling in place and rinsing out under her armpits and wringing out the straps to her attire. 
	“What tha… cut the pressure, the hose's busted.” A worker shouted, the beam torrential stream fizzling out to a whimper.
	An outline of dirt and perfumed grime in the shape of Brona's silhouette stained the wall. She spat out a mouthful of steam and shook off as she ducked under a ladder to head off. 
	“Ey bitch, you gotta find soumthin else to take out ya anger on, ya ok?” 
	Brona threw her hands into the air, as if to indicate an object of grand volume. “Bite your whole ass.” 


~ 2 ~


Rounding another corner, Brona twisted her little finger in her ears, tugging it out for a stream of bubbles to pool out. “Urgk…” 
	“S-sstwop.” 
	She peeked up, seeing a boy with her mother walking away from a sea-salt gelato stand, the boy screaming and flailing his arm to protect his ice cream from a crow intent on snatching it. 
	“Backowk.” It shouted in triumph, claws fixed around the cone, and taking off with its price. 
	“Maawmf s-stop it.” The boy bawled as the coal black bird took to the skies. 
	Once the rooster had flow up high, it begun to craw in celebration. Just as it was about to perch on the roof top, its fluttering wings spilling drops of the molten salt cream. “Chraaw haraawr-uaaggghhwwk-.” Its cry silenced by a horseshoe flung onto its neck, dragging it straight down tot he ground like a sack of potatoes. 


”Hey, kid, think you'd want this back.” 
	The mother turned, her face growing pale as she saw a bum, partially dressed with their tattered scraps flinging everywhich way, dousing water around them as if they just rose from the sewers, eyes red with suds streaming down her cheeks, holding out a cone of gelato cluttered with gravel and dirt. 
	“M-mom?” 
	She protectively stepped in front of her son. 
	“Do not dare take another step.” 
	The bum halted. 
	“I am not going to get my boy to contract whatever you dragged with you,” she was surprised at her own irritation, but the words washed down her lips like a waterfall. “Leave us alone.” She huddled her son close and walked backwards until she was at a safe distance. 
	“Mom… w-what was that?” 
	“Some mean witch lost on the streets.” 
	-Pthhtnog- the song of metal soared in the air behind her, a horseshoe clashing into the back of her neck, leaving the mother toppling onto all fours with the metal collar weighing down her neck. 
	“It's 'Bitch', thank you very much,” Brona called, stomping off around the corner with her hands down her pocket. The pavement splintered into cracks beneath her footsteps.