Ana Vidosavljevic from Serbia is currently living in Indonesia. She has her work published or forthcoming in Down in the Dirt (Scar Publications), Literary Yard, RYL (Refresh Your Life), The Caterpillar, The Curlew, Eskimo Pie, Coldnoon, Perspectives, Indiana Voice Journal, The Raven Chronicles, Setu Bilingual Journal, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Madcap Review, The Bookends Review, Gimmick Press, (mac)ro(mic), Scarlet Leaf Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, A New Ulster and many others. Her collection of short stories Mermaids will be published by Adelaide Books in September 2019, and a memoir Flower Thieves will be published by the same publishing house in April 2020.
My Dad’s Makeup
My sister and I were good children. Well, not always. We had our moments of mischief that we enjoyed
so much. However, our victims didn’t like those moments at all.
Our father loved napping on the couch in the living room while pretending he was watching TV. He
would start watching TV, of course, but the afternoon lazy shades would easily creep inside the living
room and overcome him, leading him to the world of dreams and snoring. That was our chance to grab
the remote and change the TV channel. Dad often watched some boring news broadcasting the
happenings of the day and my sister and I preferred cartoons, animal world channels and music
channels.
However, that particular Sunday, when our dad fell asleep on his couch and started snoring loudly, no
channel could keep us entertained. And we came up with the spectacular idea. Why didn’t we put
makeup on our dad’s face?! I know! It sounded quite thrilling and exciting that both my sister and I got
goosebumps from all that excitement.
Our mother was not at home, but we didn’t know when she would come back from her Sunday
neighborhood visiting, and therefore, we couldn’t waste time. We took her makeup set and hurried to
complete our task. We both were struggling not to laugh loudly since we didn’t want to wake up our
father.
We carefully applied a mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, cheek powder blush, powder cream and
on the top of his head, we tightened his curls with pink ribbon. When our masterpiece was finished, we
hurried to hide far away from the living room but close enough to watch what would happen next.
After fifteen minutes of napping our father woke up, realized he didn’t have cigarettes left, and rushed
outside heading to the shop across the street. Still heavy-eyed and groggy, he was not aware how he
looked like. He didn’t notice his complete head transformation. My sister and I were hiding behind the
tool shed door in the garden from where we could clearly see him walking down the yard and going
outside. And we burst with laughter. We were not the only one to cackle with glee. Passers-by and the
shop worker were dissolving into laughter. My father’s hilarious appearance enraptured many of our
neighbors that afternoon and many people laughed so hard that their stomachs hurt. The only person
who didn’t find the whole situation funny was my father. He rushed back to the house and looked
himself in the mirror. Shocked and angry, he started yelling calling my sister’s and my name.
My sister and I hid inside the tool shed and locked the door from inside. But we couldn’t stop laughing.
When our father heard us, he came closer and told us to immediately come outside. But we disobeyed
afraid of punishment.
Finally, our dad gave up of waiting for the two of us to come out. He went to the house. My sister and I
remained locked in the tool shed another one hour. But when the night fell, we had no choice but to
leave our safe haven. It was too dark in the tool shed and we were afraid to stay there during the night.
Plus, we were hungry.
Our father was not at home and we felt relieved. That night, my sister and I had an early dinner and
rushed to go to bed afraid to face our dad. However, as he had always done, when he came back home
that night, he came to our room to turn off the light that my sister always kept on afraid to fall asleep in the dark, he tucked us in and whispered “good night”. I was not sleeping but I pretended I was just to make sure. But I knew that there would be no serious punishment waiting for us the next day.
However, the next day we had to help our father repair the fence and finish few other house chores. We
didn’t mind at all. It was the best punishment ever.
