The Change

by Kirsten Miller

“It’s meant to be an aspirational image of our female audience,” Chris explained. “Fit, gorgeous, and healthy.” It was funny, Harriett thought. Twenty-five years in advertising, and the aspirational female had never changed.

No one teaches girls how to take care of themselves. We train them to be pretty and kind and polite right before we set them loose in a world filled with wolves. Then we act surprised and horrified when some of them get eaten.

This was her land they were standing on, she reminded herself, and yet this man was insisting she view the garden through his eyes. Where she saw promise and possibility, he saw proof of a broken mind. Harriett knew she would never convince him of her sanity, so she found herself faced with a choice. She could either believe her own eyes—or she could see what the man told her to see.