Would there be a more coquettish way to perish than being strangled or hung by a rope of pearls?
Death by divine decadence.
Choked out by the seeds of the sea.
Strangulation by beautification.
The darker heart of the coquette world beats more prominently as we near the end of the summer, perhaps sensing its own demise. Too many people flirt with giving up, then when they get right up to the end, the panic of their ultimate weakness sets in and pulls them away from any final act of annihilation. Pish-posh to the boys who cried wolf; we have no time for them here. Wolves, witches, and the wretchedly-bitter who hang on to the very end without whining or complaint – those are the stalwart souls who will see us through the fall.
I’m aware there is a paradox there. It’s an ideal illustration that the coquette life is anything but simply pretty.
Take this post for instance. Crafted in the calm, bright light of the attic, and bound by beautiful strings of pearls, it belies a heart in grotesque riot, and a countenance at grave odds with its peaceful surroundings. One slip of the proverbial tongue, and I might speak of secrets that would hurt others as much as they would unburden my own soul of some of its demons. But this is all to come, and we have a couple more weeks of coquette respite.
Let us have this pretty pearl moment – let us have all of the pearls, in one long string, seduce and captivate us as they slyly wind around our necks, cooly coiling ever tighter in the name of all that is coquette.
“What lingered after them was not life, which always overcomes natural death, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself.” ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, ‘The Virgin Suicides‘
