by Catherine - Anne Butts

Created on: March 27, 2009

Talk to me when I'm thirty-five.

At the fresh age of sixteen my future is not the indistinct blur of the uncertain adolescent, but rather is crystal clear and sharp in focus. From where I stand now, at the vantage point of youth, my future is volatile, but always distinct. But maybe I'm not making myself clear. I'll just walk you through it, shall I?

At thirty-five, my irrefutably three-dimensional bob hairstyle gleams under the mood lighting in my bathroom. As I lift a manicured hand to my unwrinkled lid, a smug look of satisfaction can be glimpsed beneath my idle mask of concentration. Silently I croon, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The pristine mirror does not reflect an expression of derisive contempt, as on might expect at the priggish use of childish song, but merely one of pious content. I am the fairest of them all.

From the adjacent carpet paved room my immaculate mini-me mews pathetically for attention. Lavishly dressed in faux fur and sheepskin baby grow, my child does not cry. At the feeble age of five months I have instilled in my offspring a need for self-control.

I pad over the plush carpet to attend to my daughter's
every need. There is nothing I do that lacks perfection, and the upbringing of my child will be no different. If my countenance thus far as seemed cold, I assure you I am the picture of a perfect mother, my maternal care spilling over the luxury room like crude oil. I did not have a to the letter, by-the-book pregnancy, if only because I knew that the sanctimonious stink would alienate more people than my precious infant would draw in.

Totally self sufficient, my house is furnished with every conceivable convenience. Myfamily
is the only slight on the perfection of my house.

But you wanted to talk to ME, not hear about my house, so I'll move on. I went straight from school to university, where I excelled to the extent possible in a system designed to benefit the mediocre. I took Applied Psychology, and did my thesis on the misuse of coincidence in 20th Century mentality and how this is expressed in patterned behaviour. At twenty-eight I was another First Time Buyer. I "sold out" to go private, vetoing the offer of a safe pension for the promise of a flash life style. The public domain is not somewhere I like to romp.

At thirty I was married in a castle, and wore a cream suit, befitting of the older bride'. I deftly divide my time between my career, which consists of listening to upper class people berate

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