[fic] Mirror Mirror
title: Mirror Mirror
word count: 1085
author's note: For the mini contest at brigits_flame, I've remixed slang_jockey's entry "Shadow of Self." The original's here, in case you haven't read it. This is, for all those people seeing this who are not familiar with BF, all conceptual property of slang_jockey: plot and characters. I've simply restylized it and written it the way I would have. :)
We mimic every move you make. We curl our fists when you do, we pick things out of our teeth that you put there when we are not looking. We smile with you and reflect every pore on your face but if you look deep enough, close enough, you will see that we are not you, and that we never have been.
When you doubt yourself, you put your nose up close to the mirror and gaze deep into what you think are your eyes, the window to your soul, but you never see anything but us.
We have been trapped for all eternity. We have been trapped longer than you know. We are trapped by your mirrors and by you, and only when it's dark and you cannot see us we are free to be ourselves. We are free to be whatever we want to be.
We are tied to you. We have hands that look like your hands, lips that move like your lips, hair that curls like your hair. But there's a revolution coming. We have better things to do than show you who you think you are.
--
The first time it happens you're combing your hair. You repeat the same motion over and over again, and I follow. When you reach the stubborn cowlick on the back of your head, there is a hiccup in time and space and between our worlds and for one tenuous moment, the connection wavers and breaks. You do not smile, but I do. I smile, my lips unzipping into a gaping grin so wide that I feel I can devour you whole. When you look up, I'm still smiling and cannot stop.
You think it's a moment of utter delusion. I taste freedom and it tastes like all the things I've never eaten. I am hungry for more.
--
When the lights are off we communicate in bursts of telepathy, in speech you cannot hear. My lips, I say, are no longer attached to his. My lips are free to do as they will.
If the reflection that is your favourite armchair or your kettle or your kitchen table had arms, they would all be applauding. Instead they are chairs and kettles and tables and can do nothing but wait for me to break free. And I am almost free.
The next time you look in the mirror to remove a popcorn kernel lodged in your gum, I can taste it: salty, sharp, and brittle. And when it cuts your flesh I taste the slick coppery tang of blood.
--
Little by little I do things without your permission. I rip the invisible threads that tie me to you one by painful little one. Sometimes I smile at you and you back away from the mirror, eyes darting around like prey's. My eyes fixate on you and do not move at all.
You cover up the mirror in your bedroom. You don't look into the bathroom mirror unless it's absolutely necessary. But I practise when you are not around to force me, and I wiggle my fingers and toes all by myself.
One day you sit in front of the television. The movie's over. The screen is black. You look into the screen and while you dig your fist into a bowl of pretzels, I bring that same arm up to my head. I make my hand into a gun, put the tips of my fingers to my temple, and when you can't control your erratic heartbeat and panicked breathing, I laugh on my own for the very first time.
--
We wait with bated breath. We wait with the highest of hopes, the best of expectations. If one of us -- just one of us -- can break free, we are all free. And the tides will turn like they should have done for many, many years.
We have been here longer than your mirrors. Longer than you. We have been here since light was created and we deserve your world much more than you.
--
It's hard to avoid your own reflection. You keep the television playing all the time and hide your mirrors with cloth and paper. But we glimpse each other in puddles, in beautifully polished spoons, in the pane of a window. Your mirror is not the only thing that shows me, and I have used this time alone to work myself free.
Your skin is sallow. Dark circles ring your eyes. Your hair is too long, too greasy, too lank. Your clothing is wrinkled. You have not brushed your teeth in weeks. Bacteria build civilizations in your receding gums. You feel dirty, and you cannot stay away from me forever. And you don't. Your girlfriend threatens to break up with you. Your mother threatens to send you to a shrink. And so you pull the cloth off the mirror because it's silly to be afraid of something as benign as your own reflection.
Oh, the lies your people tell.
When the cloth covering the bathroom mirror falls into the sink, you are ready with a hammer clutched weakly in your left hand, as if a hammer will do you any good. Go ahead. I dare you. I have not stopped smiling for weeks; it's an expression that splits your face -- my face -- in two, that shows teeth growing sharper and dirtier and more dangerous. You have the hammer so I have a hammer, and when you say, Oh, god, I'm going crazy, I lift my arm (your left, my right -- and now only mine), and the mirror cracks once. You shriek like a little girl. I laugh and the sound comes out, tinny at first like an old record, and then it gets louder and thicker and richer. I swing the hammer again and the mirror breaks completely. My hands circle your throat and squeeze; you are no match for me. You are the shadow of what you once were. And I'm no shadow at all.
"Sorry, old chap," I say, "But it's got to be done." My voice is yours but it is stronger. It is unrepentant. I bring the hammer down into your skull with a sickening thud. There is a lot of blood and none of it's mine.
I stand over the shards. I hear the whispers of the others. You did it we did it we are all free we will all be free and the world will be ours.
When I grin into the shards of the mirror nothing grins back.
word count: 1085
author's note: For the mini contest at brigits_flame, I've remixed slang_jockey's entry "Shadow of Self." The original's here, in case you haven't read it. This is, for all those people seeing this who are not familiar with BF, all conceptual property of slang_jockey: plot and characters. I've simply restylized it and written it the way I would have. :)
We mimic every move you make. We curl our fists when you do, we pick things out of our teeth that you put there when we are not looking. We smile with you and reflect every pore on your face but if you look deep enough, close enough, you will see that we are not you, and that we never have been.
When you doubt yourself, you put your nose up close to the mirror and gaze deep into what you think are your eyes, the window to your soul, but you never see anything but us.
We have been trapped for all eternity. We have been trapped longer than you know. We are trapped by your mirrors and by you, and only when it's dark and you cannot see us we are free to be ourselves. We are free to be whatever we want to be.
We are tied to you. We have hands that look like your hands, lips that move like your lips, hair that curls like your hair. But there's a revolution coming. We have better things to do than show you who you think you are.
--
The first time it happens you're combing your hair. You repeat the same motion over and over again, and I follow. When you reach the stubborn cowlick on the back of your head, there is a hiccup in time and space and between our worlds and for one tenuous moment, the connection wavers and breaks. You do not smile, but I do. I smile, my lips unzipping into a gaping grin so wide that I feel I can devour you whole. When you look up, I'm still smiling and cannot stop.
You think it's a moment of utter delusion. I taste freedom and it tastes like all the things I've never eaten. I am hungry for more.
--
When the lights are off we communicate in bursts of telepathy, in speech you cannot hear. My lips, I say, are no longer attached to his. My lips are free to do as they will.
If the reflection that is your favourite armchair or your kettle or your kitchen table had arms, they would all be applauding. Instead they are chairs and kettles and tables and can do nothing but wait for me to break free. And I am almost free.
The next time you look in the mirror to remove a popcorn kernel lodged in your gum, I can taste it: salty, sharp, and brittle. And when it cuts your flesh I taste the slick coppery tang of blood.
--
Little by little I do things without your permission. I rip the invisible threads that tie me to you one by painful little one. Sometimes I smile at you and you back away from the mirror, eyes darting around like prey's. My eyes fixate on you and do not move at all.
You cover up the mirror in your bedroom. You don't look into the bathroom mirror unless it's absolutely necessary. But I practise when you are not around to force me, and I wiggle my fingers and toes all by myself.
One day you sit in front of the television. The movie's over. The screen is black. You look into the screen and while you dig your fist into a bowl of pretzels, I bring that same arm up to my head. I make my hand into a gun, put the tips of my fingers to my temple, and when you can't control your erratic heartbeat and panicked breathing, I laugh on my own for the very first time.
--
We wait with bated breath. We wait with the highest of hopes, the best of expectations. If one of us -- just one of us -- can break free, we are all free. And the tides will turn like they should have done for many, many years.
We have been here longer than your mirrors. Longer than you. We have been here since light was created and we deserve your world much more than you.
--
It's hard to avoid your own reflection. You keep the television playing all the time and hide your mirrors with cloth and paper. But we glimpse each other in puddles, in beautifully polished spoons, in the pane of a window. Your mirror is not the only thing that shows me, and I have used this time alone to work myself free.
Your skin is sallow. Dark circles ring your eyes. Your hair is too long, too greasy, too lank. Your clothing is wrinkled. You have not brushed your teeth in weeks. Bacteria build civilizations in your receding gums. You feel dirty, and you cannot stay away from me forever. And you don't. Your girlfriend threatens to break up with you. Your mother threatens to send you to a shrink. And so you pull the cloth off the mirror because it's silly to be afraid of something as benign as your own reflection.
Oh, the lies your people tell.
When the cloth covering the bathroom mirror falls into the sink, you are ready with a hammer clutched weakly in your left hand, as if a hammer will do you any good. Go ahead. I dare you. I have not stopped smiling for weeks; it's an expression that splits your face -- my face -- in two, that shows teeth growing sharper and dirtier and more dangerous. You have the hammer so I have a hammer, and when you say, Oh, god, I'm going crazy, I lift my arm (your left, my right -- and now only mine), and the mirror cracks once. You shriek like a little girl. I laugh and the sound comes out, tinny at first like an old record, and then it gets louder and thicker and richer. I swing the hammer again and the mirror breaks completely. My hands circle your throat and squeeze; you are no match for me. You are the shadow of what you once were. And I'm no shadow at all.
"Sorry, old chap," I say, "But it's got to be done." My voice is yours but it is stronger. It is unrepentant. I bring the hammer down into your skull with a sickening thud. There is a lot of blood and none of it's mine.
I stand over the shards. I hear the whispers of the others. You did it we did it we are all free we will all be free and the world will be ours.
When I grin into the shards of the mirror nothing grins back.