Homage to Catatonia

Her skin was the color and consistency of finely ground cocoa powder.

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Her narrowed eyes glowed cool from behind ash blonde bangs like the blue cores of glaciers.

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Her face was like a Picasso, all huge eyes and disconcerting angles that somehow coalesced into beauty once you learned how to look at her.

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She was freckle-faced but her freckles were so fair, like the rest of her face, that you only noticed them if you were standing a couple feet away.

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It was no wonder he hadn’t recognized her. She was wearing a black dress that hung from her slender, bare shoulders by two thin straps. Her hair, which she had always kept in a simple ponytail, was loose: inky black and cupping her face like parentheses.