Saturday 28 July 2012

A Change of Mind


Some years ago, I was chatting with a colleague who’d had over a month off work. I knew she’d been in hospital and didn’t think she’d mind me asking why. She pointed to her not-insignificant sized breasts, for one so small, and smiled. “These little buggers,” she said. “Wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known I’d get Pleurisy and nearly die but,” her glass was always half full, “at least they managed to save them, cost me five grand.”

It upset me that this gutsy lady had spent all her savings, and some more, on a ‘boob job’. It wasn’t on a personal level, I have no interest in what people do and don’t do with their own money. But as a society, I wondered how we’d managed to become a country where this was so important?
 Then I read that the most requested birthday present for American 18 year olds that year had been breast augmentation and my story, A Change of Mind, was the result.

I stashed the story away, it was only ever something I wanted to, ahem, get off my chest but when I was skulking around my old directories recently, searching for inspiration, I decided to dust it off and enter it into the monthly Writers’ Billboard Short Story Competition. You don’t need me to say how excited I was to hear that it had won the June competition, its prize being a two month airing on the host’s website. My eight weeks of ‘fame’ are drawing to a close so I wondered if I could intrigue you enough to fly over to the Writers’ Billboard site to read the story before it’s released into that place in the webosphere for old stories no longer required. You can find it here: *Updated: please now access through this link to my website

Many thanks to the Writers’ Billboard for the opportunity. They host monthly competitions all year round and I’m sure they’d love you to have a go yourselves! The Writers' Billboard website

8 comments:

  1. It's a fabulous story! Brilliant concept and well written. How about entering one for the Greenacre Writers forthcoming comp?

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    1. Thank you Lindsay, you've made my day :) I'd love to check out the Greenacre Writers competition, shall head over there right now!

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  2. Great story - and I so agree that young people insisting on breast perfection is bonkers. All our bodies have their little quirks - it's what makes us individual. (Though I might put a few pink streaks in my hair when it finally goes grey!)

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    1. Thank you Jo! I'm glad you liked my little story and yes, I agree with all the above - particularly the pink streaks to *enhance* the grey ;)

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  3. Awww! Thanks Antonia, glad it hit the spot :)

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  4. I loved your story as it managed to pack a serious point in a quirky plot - well done. I am in two minds about whether surgery could ever be a good thing. Personally I would never entertain it and would hate to think that anyone, especially a young person, would have such a sad view of themselves that they wanted to have breast enlargement or whatever. But then the logical bit of my brain takes over and I think well if we think it is OK to use make up or dye our hair or even pierce our ears to enhance our appearance what it the difference apart from the scale, the cost, the risk of it going wrong etc. I think it is different actually but can't quite get my head round why I think that is! I don't think it is just the permanent nature of the procedure although I would certainly have reservations about it from that point of view, as I would about tattooing for instance, but is seems more fundamental than that. I think my reservations really stem from a belief that it is our little quirks that make us who we are. I would love to know what some of your other lovely readers think!

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  5. Thanks Lyn, I'm so glad you enjoyed the story. I know exactly what you mean about the contradictions and have got myself in knots with this before. I just think it's all about degree. It's human nature (some would say, necessity, for procreation!!) to want to enhance what we have and even the very poorest societies spend time and money on their appearance. However, I think there's a difference between 'enhancement' ie make up and 'change' ie expensive and potentially dangerous surgery. That's how I justify my double standards, as somebody who's never far from her mascara, anyway!
    Thanks for reading.

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