We were told we were part of a bright new future. Radium was rare, sought after, the new wonder drug. Wealthy women with completely different lives from us clamored for radium face cream for an infinite youthful glow. The upper classes drank radium water and brushed with radium toothpaste. Not all products contained the substance obviously; not everyone could get it. But we got to work with it, dipping our delicate brushes in the substance and with the steadiest of hands painted the thin arms of watches and aircraft instruments. Before, we were ordinary, our education an indulgence. With the boys away fighting the Great War, our incomes now helped our families, and our work saved the lives of pilots, possibly innocent civilians. And they said it was safe, a harmless revolutionary new product. And we were unique, special; we were incandescent. We glowed like luna moths. We could see our way home through pitch nights, led only by the magic of our fingertips. With a brief touch, our clothes glowed, and we were mysterious luminescent ghosts floating down the city’s streets.
Until one by one we began to disappear. Our skin sifted translucence, our bones dissolved, our teeth fell out. Each dip of the slight brush between our lips, only thirty hairs on each one, for the sliver of a minute and hour hand, and still, we died like stars, from the inside.