The Tremble

Misses Marble Crumble sat looking at her fingers, wondering which one would betray her next. They held still.

A young man with long hair passed, sat down behind her, headphones covering his ears. Her fingers trembled just a bit, but no one more than another. She sighed, and broke her concentration. Stared out the window. It had been a week since she had full spasms, and she desperately wanted to get in front of it, when it inevitably happened again.

Familiar streets passed by, the ghost-image of her worried face over top of them. She shook her head, opened her nylon and gold-painted bag, retrieving her lip gloss.

Re-applying was such an ingrained behavior, the act of doing it calmed her. The familiarity helped. She held her hand mirror in her left, drawing a meticulous, sparkling line with her right.

Right twitched.

Just a bit, not like before, not like the worst of it, but the sparkling line rose up in a jagged little arc above the corner of her lip. She replaced the lip gloss applier, screwing it shut shakily into the bottle, putting it back in her bag with a clatter; it seemed to hit everything else in there. She fumbled for a tissue, then paused, not knowing where to use it first.