The image of the small, wooden remnant of an eyeliner pencil, about an inch in length and bereft of its white, waxy "lead" stayed with her hours later. It remained where she'd dropped it during her frenzied morning makeup ritual, there, in the middle of the dirty bathroom mat about which her wife often complained she never washed often enough. There it lay like a memorial.
It evoked a dream she'd had 32 years before, in which she herself had been a stick of waxy makeup and lived in the bottom of an unknown lady's purse; as the dream progressed, she was aware of the temporaryness of her existence. She was aware that she was being used up. She was aware, that she was disappearing. In her dream, it felt like she was dying, and when she awoke, she was both sexually aroused and incredibly happy.