Neva shuddered as the cold water of the shower hit her skin like a dance of minute needles vibrating across her shoulders then running down her back in steadily warming streams until the pool around her feet was actually hot. Leaning her head back into the shower so the water hit her face and tangled in her long, blond wavy hair helped, but only a little. With a sigh, she turned the cold water off and reached for one of her big, fluffy bath sheets.

The soft, warm terry was a comfort for only a moment before it began again. An insistent worrying beneath her skin, as if a million microscopic bugs were rushing up and down in her skin, beneath the surface yet quite individually distinct to the touch as if running along avenues and hallways made up from a second surface beneath the skin. It was an unbearable sensation, yet she had been bearing it for months now.

Neva had gone to her doctor at first. He was a kind, gentle man who had been treating her general ills, aches and pains for most of her adult life. She loved his benevolent brown eyes and the compassionate way his soft hands soothed her as he explored her body so very politely in an exam. The doctor listened to her list of odd woes and willies and asked about her periods.

Never regular, her menses now showed up twice in one month, and then disappeared for six months. She was too hot, then too cold. At night she would wake up in bedclothes soaked with her own sweat. Her breasts ached until she was sure it had to be cancer or some other terrible nameless thing. Worst of all, sometimes she couldn’t remember something for more than a minute. She would arrive in the kitchen with no idea of what she had been seeking there. Look up a phone number, and then have to look it up again before she could dial it on the phone. And then there was this horrible skin sensation. At first it was intermittent, lasting only a few minutes. Gradually it became a constant low-level irritation, occasionally peaking to such a point she would desperately seek relief of any kind.

The doctor smiled and nodded, and nodded some more. Then explained to Neva that this was all perfectly natural and normal for a woman of her age. “It is called menopause, or the change of life”, he told her in his calm voice. A prescription for estrogen and a counseling for patience until this passes was all he had to offer.

Neva filled the prescription and went home vaguely dissatisfied. When she shared the news with her Wednesday night quilting club she was deluged with all sorts of folk remedies, natural cures, and more suggestions and, inevitably, a wise nodding of heads and assurance that this would all pass in time.

The first time she took the estrogen, she was taken with a terrible fit of vomiting that lasted for hours. When she called the doctors office they promised her it couldn’t be the hormone – she must have gotten something bad to eat. The next day it was the same, only the vomiting was followed by diarrhea. Again she called, and was advised to go to the emergency room and be checked for food poisoning, but definitely to continue to take the estrogen – especially since her complaints about hot and cold flashes, and this endless itching sensation under her skin remained the same.

A day wasted in emergency, squirming in discomfort, alternately shivering and sweating and always, always the itching – and now, of course, rushing to the bathroom every few minutes – gave Neva no satisfaction. The doctor on call shrugged, and the nurses seemed almost angry with her for wasting their time when they had real emergencies to deal with, such as the child who had somehow gotten a glass sliver in his eye doing some sort of hobby, or the man who fell off his boat while getting it on the trailer and sprained his ankle. Neva slung home feeling as if she had somehow done something wrong.

Just as an experiment, she stopped taking the estrogen. All the vomiting and nasty stomach things stopped, although the hot and cold flashes, the soreness, and most of all the awful prick prick pricking of her skin came back even worse than before. Neva tried all the folk remedies, the natural cures, the homeopathic tinctures, vitamins, and long soaks with the finest bath oils made. A few things helped a little, or at least, she thought they did.

Then she began to swell. Her entire body seemed to grow rounder and rounder. Her skin seemed taut, and had a whitish glow. Her face became puffy and blotchy pink and white until she called the girls and excused herself from quilting club meetings because she couldn’t bear for anyone to see her. Everything seemed scratchy to her increasingly sensitive skin and she wound up living in a big silk muumuu because she couldn’t fit into anything else, and anyway she couldn’t bear anything other than the lightest whisper of silken fabric on her skin. And then her hair, her long beautiful hair, began falling out by the handful.

She called the doctors office. But when she told the nurse that she had stopped taking the estrogen, the nurse got huffy and told her that if she did not follow the doctor’s instructions, then of course she must expect the sensations to get worse. When Neva mentioned the home remedies to her, the nurse got angry and told Neva that perhaps she should go back to her witch doctor before hanging up.

And still that sensation continued, worse all the time. She would pace and pace for hours, unable to concentrate on anything – music, TV, a book. A drink, a bit of rum or whisky, would seem to turn it down for a few minutes, as if the little bugs got drunk and sleepy. Neva began going days without sleep, then sleeping twelve or fourteen hours or more at a time – waking soaked in sweat. She went out once – only because she had concluded that silk sheets might help her sleep and she had to buy some. The young cashier at the store looked at her in her big silk muumuu, her blotchy face and ragged hair and smiled.

“My mother got just like that. Don’t you worry – it all goes away eventually.” The bright young thing said, and then turned her head away and giggled.

Neva was ashamed, and furious.

She went home and spread the silk sheets on her bed. They shone at her invitingly – white and silver like ice. Neva undressed and had her shower before slipping thankfully between the beautiful sheets. For a moment, even that buzzing sensation, that feeling that she didn’t belong in her skin, ceased completely. She sighed and rolled up in the top sheet like a cocoon before sliding into blissful sleep. For only a second before she slipped away she could have sworn that suddenly the awful prickling itch started again before sleep sucked her down into nothingness.

She woke up only once, feeling as if she were wet all over. Neva sighed, night sweats again, she thought. But it didn’t quite feel like that. More like a soothing lotion had been somehow poured over her, between her and the slick, cool sheets. She couldn’t escape the soft sensation of sleep and dozed off again.

Neva woke. Without opening her eyes, she knew something amazing must have happened. The air smelled sweeter. She felt like herself again – but even better. As if she had somehow been born again – a younger Neva, with a strong, beautiful body and perfect skin. She smiled, and opened her eyes. Sunlight bathed the room. The silk sheets were puddled around her feet.

Her feet! No longer swollen, they seemed longer, lighter boned, the skin perfectly smooth and pure white with the faintest glow about them. As Neva sat up in shock, she felt the strangest sensation. As if she had…

WINGS! Twisting and turning her head she could only see glimpses of smooth whiteness with an iridescent rainbow gleam. Neva leapt up from the bed and felt like she might just fly up to the ceiling, her body was as light as a bundle of sticks and perfect – oh, how perfect! She ran to the mirror on her toes and was astounded by what she saw.

She was slender, more slender than she had ever been, and her skin was a glowing flawless milky white. Her hair was as glorious as it had been in her little girl days, flowing to her waist. Instead of being blond, it was snowy white. Neva took a deep breath and turned sideways. She let the air out in a sigh. Beautiful, iridescent white butterfly wings emerged from between her shoulder blades. She experimented for a few moments, learning how to flex and flutter them.

Turning from the mirror, Neva regarded the room she had retreated to hide herself in who knows how long ago. The sad silk muumuu hung from the edge of a door. Big enough to hold an elephant it looked now. The silk sheets were tangled and musty. The TV droned on the shopping channel. The window beckoned her.

She drew the heavy curtains open on a perfect spring day. The dewdrops shone brighter, the flowers smelled sweeter, the sky – the sky called to her. Neva flexed her new wings. Smiled. And flew out into the day.

Written in just over an hour (forgot to check the time) 1600 words, rough edited

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