Underwater

This morning the metro was  terribly crowded.  Pressed against me on the train was A Woman - a woman of medium height, an intermediate grade of prettiness, dressed in a shirt and trousers of unexceptionable tones, greys and browns. 

She averaged out to an comfortable level of nonentity. 

But - Her lips were thick  and heavy, painted with a dark red lipstick.  Her eyelashes werecurled with mascara and layered with false eyelashes, and under each eye - only underneath - she had rimmed her eye-sockets with a shimmering iridescent blue shadow.  The effect was startling.  I thought of a tropical reef fish - bright slashes of color catching in the light of passing stations - coral bones bleached white - porcelain skeleton under blue skin.