The scene opens on a living room. The lights are dim, but you can make out a couch in the center of the room, where a figure lays. Curls draping over one arm of the couch, an arm akimbo towards the viewer, the shoes still on but the feet not so much flailing, as fidgeting. The summer heat is stifling in Las Vegas, more than it ever was in Chicago. “Dry heat my ass,” the woman says as she lifts her linen shirt up to expose the underside of her breasts to the stagnant air of her home. “At least in Chicago you could get a decent beer.” The woman muttered, fanning herself, shifting her legs here and there as if desperate for any sort of relief from the summer heat.

During her moving and adjusting of her clothing the woman is grossly aware of her own body. The years of her youth were behind her; she was marked with stripes from a life of baked goods, delicious pasta, and fantastic wine. And normally this would not bother the woman. Her delusions of her own appearance mixed with the adoration of those desperate for female attention was a heady mix that suited everyone just fine. But now, on the cusp of her thirty-ninth year, the woman was starting to pay more attention.

First, she held her breasts up, to let the heat escape from the under-boob where all good things go to die. Then the wine took over from the common sense and she started humming Sinatra songs, and moving each blob of fat in time to the music. Bored with that she moved to her belly. Sure, it had not borne any children yet, but what is a delicious plate of pasta for two except a baby waiting to be birthed on the toilet.

The longer the woman laid there, lifting her bits, her rolls, her flabs, and her body to allow the fresh air to get to where it needed to be to survive this summer heat, she wondered if this was all life had to offer. And empty home, an empty wine bottle, and the adjustment of your fat to survive the sweltering heat of Las Vegas. Certainly, the glamour everyone spoke of, was just at her finger tips.

So here lay a woman on her couch, adjusting her flab to cool off, out of wine, and debating if it was worth living to see forty. The first Thirty-nine years had not been much of anything. People knew your name, but did not care about you unless they could use you. People did not reach out or speak out unless involving you gave them a leg up.

These streets had been her home for twenty odd years; she was far past her prime. Past when being desperate for attention and validation worked because she was youthful, trim, and stupid enough to believe the lies. Now she was old, saggy, fat, sweaty and still desperate for validation but also knew how the world was.

“Thirty-Nine was a big number, perhaps it’d be best to just never reach it.”

The woman pondered this thought while continuing to contort her fat to allow fresh air into the sweaty bits, wondering how the fuck she even managed to live this long.