Written by: Joei D’aloia
First Place Winner of the 2026 Jennie Hackman Memorial Prize for Short Fiction
I.
On Wednesdays, the uniform is drenched in soggy dough water. The water is full of soggy dough that no one else wants to clean. It must be because I’m new that I’m cleaning it. It must be because I’m new that they are making me clean it. My fingertips are pruned by five, and home is five minutes away. I carry that soggy smell into my home. As I pull the uniform over my head, the dough on its sleeves and torso smear into a star on my lips. I’m learning that stars are simply glue that seals top lips to bottom lips, and bottom to top lips. A woman’s bottom lip and top lip. Top lip and bottom lip are meant to be one big lip sealed shut. That big lip is a star. Stars are new! To be new is to be born. To be born is to be a star. This star keeps me new.
Thursday evening, I am wearing a new uniform. A uniform made new of single, great strip of curtain fabric. The curtain fabric is folded over into overalls. The flowers on it itch my skin; I’m not used to its newness. Overalls are appropriate for being made new. Overalls are overall, easy, and made of curtain fabric. Easy and Curtain Fabrics are not to be confused for being one in the same. Their uniform is one. “Uni” means one and “form” is another word for shape. Their uniform is one shape. One shape that is made of fabric that splits my skin, it is one shape that is new now. One shape that is made of overalls, short and childish it is one shape that is new now. This is the new uniform. Now the uniform is made of stars and my lips are one big star. All things that are new must be stars, I figure.
The Boss compliments me often, she says I am chipper, but while sparrows chirp…stars wallow in their inability to make noise. Boss narrows her eyes at sparrows like me, she warns that I won’t have much “soul” to spare by the end of the season. But am I a star or a sparrow? Does she not see the star that seals my lips? I don’t think both can be true at the same time, for sparrows don’t glow and stars don’t chirp. It hurts to know that no one sees me that way I am supposed to be seen. Stars are always dying from lack of fuel. Especially at work, when the ovens are turned off by a crisp beating heel. For a matter of fact, I got burned the other day, a crescent sear branded my left bicept. It’s this place’s way of saying I’m owned now. Everyone that has ever once been new here, has a scar somewhere. I am a sparrow, perhaps. Sparrows can be hurt by flame, but stars are already burning. If I am to be a bird, why not a phoenix? If daily gossip and rumors can flow like truth, how can mythological birds built from ashes not rise? I ponder this question for the rest of my shift until the lights dim and the sky lifts the moon high. That is when I realize I have been thinking far too long. Stars bring thoughts, wishes when they soar, especially sung by those who are poor. It’s funny to be born a poor star. Perhaps that is why I burn.
My mother is rather angry with me when I sit in the passenger’s seat. I took too much time washing, she says. “I got held up with customers,” I plead. She contends that I allow myself to be overworked, that I should leave when it is time. Mother doesn’t understand that in this place, you lose yourself to time. I am thinking again that I am a star instead of a sparrow. I know I am a star because her eyes are focused on me. Light holds in her dark irises; there is a spotlight on me. This is the reason I cannot call her “Mom” instead of “Mother”.
II.
When I was smaller and newer than I am now, I realised that “all girls who are born are born stars.” The moment I recognized this statement to be true is difficult to recall. However, I remember a spotted hand squeezing my jaw. I remember delighted voices, followed only by acts of favor. I remember the dirty words I was not allowed to speak. I remember the pounds of food I could not eat. I remember the need to sit upright, while gesturing small that weeded its way into my bones. I remember the croak I let out when I was forced to smoke. Smoke is fuel for fire, and stars need fuel to live. I thought myself to be happy to be a star, a beautiful storyteller, who grants miracles, my Mother insisted. Mother pulled taught the thread that sew my top lip to bottom lip, and bottom lip to top lip, so that a star may rest visible and bare for its watchers to kiss onto my mouth.
Whether I am a sparrow or a star, it does not matter. I’m always being watched, being hunted. The only thing I myself can watch is the ground, which is of alien matter. It’s squishy, spongey even, yet firm. It’s full of dirt. Dirt, bugs, litter, and shit. Even so, it is cleaner than the floors of my home. It is cleaner the floors of the bakery. I’m most certain it is cleaner than any man-made floor ever created. There is no room for truth in Man’s floor. There is no cracks, no room for imperfection… an insult to nature. Man likes to steal things, to own things that are not theirs. I as a Woman, must hide. I hide, but I am found, captured too easily for as much as I love the clouds, they are too sheer to hide the truth of what I am to Man.
This is all supposed to make sense somehow. It’s been two hundred twenty-five days since I started working here, and home is five minutes away. More women have vanished, which means more stars have died. I have tried to search for a pattern, but find nothing but a burning smell left in their absence. The oven remains empty. I have more cuts and bruises on my fingers and knees than I did two days ago. It must be from the lack of sleep. Today, I’m crying into the dough. My tears are flooding it, but I am not sad, I am not angry. If anything, I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel anything but curiosity. If women are stars, shooting stars, how come no one’s ever tried to catch them before?
III.
A gash in the pasture, grass decayed, a smothering fire sears my lungs. Bones in ruin, my bones in ruin. Flesh fluids seap from my ruined body. My body made in ruin, returned to ruin. Can I be made new again? The star in my hand quivers, it’s light slowly fading. I pull a match from the pocket of my overalls. I make sure it is lit well and leaves behind a heavy smoke. Match dipping into the star’s core, it erupts, expanding beyond itself. I can’t make out its shape anymore as my eyes begin to drown. It looks to be one grand fire…what uniform does it take? What uniform am I left with as my eyes shut, cold and unaware?
The smell of the old, soggy dough returns. It is the first thing I recall. I overhear my Mother shouting at someone, a doctor, I deduce from the sound of the steady monitor behind me and the needle buried into the bend of my right arm. My ruined fingers twitch; twitching fingers aren’t good. Aren’t enough good for work. I cannot let myself slip into this newness, this isn’t the kind of newness a star or even a sparrow holds. I cannot let myself fall into this newness. Water needs to be cleaned. My hands are too dry to clean. This dryness cannot be sustained. I will be wasted. These hands will crumble and fall into failure. I need to be clean. Clean this newness off of me. My plans are in ruin, ruined in the ruins that the star trapped me in. I should’ve known to let her fall. Now it’s my turn to vanish into this ugliness, this cursed way of life. I cannot be returned to the ruin, I cannot afford to live in this world with the way I am now. My body is on fire, and I am fired from this place.
IV.
I’m unsure of how much time has passed since my newness has expired, and I have become old in my womanhood, my Mother assures me, even though I am only 16. I, as a Woman, have no place in this world if I cannot be made new. Sparrows and Stars are new, and I am certainly not. Flash, multiple flashes of light bouncing off one big shape of an angel, encompass the entirety of my vision. She is standing above me now, her hand traces my warped lips. My mouth is no longer that of a star, but she kisses it anyway. The kiss is cold, yet it vibrates under my skin, rattling me warm and free of sin. “You will be made new again,” she promises in a small breath. I cry again, but this time I cry because I am right to cry. I feel weightless in her embrace. Her grace that once trapped me in ruin, the curse stars alike she, bestowed upon generations like me. Frees me, saves me from this world’s newness. She and I know all too well that newness vanishes as fast as it arrives. I am free, and my burns welt and freeze away from me. My soul is molding upward, taking me to the sky, my body fades from beneath me. All I am left to do is rest.