I slipped my uttermost worn dress over my soft silhouette. Frayed, thread bare. The feel was forsaken. I felt empty. Like I needed something to make me whole but not quite sure what. The dress that held my hand throughout the good times and the bad had somehow turned on me. It was the dress my dad had given me when I was much younger. I let my hair hang loosely. The curls sat on my hips. I crept towards my mirror in my bare feet. I abhorred that mirror. Another friend I used to trust but had withdrawn from me slowly.
The mirror kept me up at night chanting these words. “I am a mirror. When you are around me you see who you really are. I am a mirror. I am truthful. I am hurtful. I can’t keep a secret. I am a mirror. I do as is. I only show you honesty. Loyalty. I am a mirror. The way you treat me is the way I treat you. I observe all day. Taunt all night. I am a mirror. I’ll always see you exactly how you are, a young stupid girl.”
I looked at the mirror straight on. Taking in what I saw. My face was flushed from the heat of the summer months. My sun sprinkled skin emphasized the rich sky azure of my eyes. My plump red lips stayed slightly parted. My dress was boat neck and curved downward and up again sitting on the very edge of my shoulders. The sleeves made it down my arm right before hitting my elbow. Skin tight; it hugged my hips, and pulled away into the flowing skirt. The bottom of the dress hemmed at my mid-thigh; much too high to where publicly. The color of the dress was revolting, a smoldering unclean yellow. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. It gave me such a wanting. Such a strong resonance it was too much to bear.
I begin to feel hot, my face flushed quickly. I needed air. Where did the air go? I lightly placed my hand upon my chest. My short choppy breaths did nothing to soothe my panic. Everything was still. The world had stopped.
I fled from my room. I cried out but nothing more than a whisper slipped out. “John.” Back door. Flings open. Falling to my hands and knees. Face touches the refreshing grass. Cool hands swipe hair from my face. There were yells I couldn’t quite grasp in the half fantasy half reality world I floated in. My eyes fluttered open suddenly. My hot clammy hands touched those of Johns.
John was a tall, slender, muscular, boy with dark ebony skin. He worked for my mother who was too “delicate” to do work on our house herself.
His hands propped up my head. I felt dizzy. “ Jane, why do you wear that dress?” John spoke. “You know what it does to you.” I could feel the exasperation and concern in his voice.
The car door slammed. Mother was home. We were both thinking the same thing. “Go.” I say. “I don’t want you to be blamed.” I thrust his hands away but he didn’t move. I tried to lift myself but I was still too dizzy and I could not seem to muster up enough energy to get up. “rest. you are to pale.” John whispered carefully placing his cool hand on my cheek.
Mother called him from the front yard. No answer. She called again. My neck let my head fall to the side. I saw my mother stomping around the side off the house. Her glare turned into a horrifying scowl as she spotted us. She dropped the groceries, I could hear the eggs break. She walked hastily toward us. With great force she grabbed John by the shirt and dragged him inside. He did nothing to protect himself as she is already beating him. I clutched onto the bottom of his pant leg but it slipped from my fingers. I used all my strength to get up. I fell to my side. But I clenched the wooden railing and made it up the two stairs as fast as I could manage without throwing up.
I entered to a gruesome scene. John was on the floor propped up against a wall; like an abused rag doll. Blood almost swallowed his face whole. Mother had a rolling pin in her hand. It too was smeared with blood. She was screaming something but I tuned it out. Life was moving in slow motion. I needed to do something. It was not his fault. As she yelled she lifted the rolling pin above her head. John raised one arm to protect himself from the incoming hit. I staggered toward them and grabbed my mother’s wrist. She flinged me across the room. I stumble backward until smacking a wall. She continued to hit him. Now I realized I had been screaming along with my mother the same word over and over, “Stop, stop!” I gathered myself as quick as possible and without realizing my actions, more of just an impulse I jumped in front of John as a human shield. The rolling pin hit my head. Hard. It felt harder than you think a rolling pin should feel. It felt like a huge pillar of 150 thousand tons falling from a skyscraper hitting the middle of my head. But no pain. nothing.
I was gone. Lost in darkness. Fighting to come back. To help John. But my mind shut off. Putting me into the darkest deepest sleep of my life. I sat in the darkness for what felt like months. Not able to move, see, feel, smell, this must be death. My mind was quite foggy.
But suddenly my eyes opened, and my head seemed clear again. I awoke to no headache sitting at a table filled with food and unfamiliar faces of people. They were gently smiling toward one another having small side conversations. “Where am I!?” I jumped up quickly. But realized that was a very big mistake because my legs were achy and sore. Like I had just run 100 miles with a flu.
I pushed my chair out of the way. It tottered to its side. I was in a very open clean area where people were calmly chatting and playing board games. They all seemed to get quiet and look my direction as I was frantically trying to figure out where I was.
A woman in a plain purple blouse and pants came up to me. “would you like anything, Jane?”
“How do you know my name? Who are you?” I took a few steps back cautiously. “Is this a hospital?” She looked over to two other women dressed just as her. Her glance was the signal for the other two women to come over. “Let’s go back to your room shall we?” she wasn’t answering me. she only slightly grabbed my elbow. I yanked it away. I could tell there was something very wrong. “No.” I begin to back away from the women more and more. They grabbed my wrists and tried to talk to me soothingly. But I began to yell. As I was trying to loosen their grasps, I looked at my hands for the first time.
They looked frail, as if all the life had been sucked out of them. You could easily see the veins that stood out from the unnatural paleness of my skin. I thought I must had been really sick. This place wasn’t right. What were they doing to me here? Were they going to kill me? Was I going to die here? It was a trap. It was manslaughter. It was poison. “John!” I began to scream. “Where’s John!?”
I looked at the calm people around for help but they only looked at me sympathetically. Some shook their heads in sadness. And I could only wonder why. Did they know my terrible fate? Why would no one help me?
I kept looking around. And through a window was an insane old woman. It caught my eye, it was unalike from the slow moving, peaceful people.
From the corner of my eyes I saw her jumping and hitting younger ladies dressed similarly to the ones in front of me. I stopped my struggle and turned my head to look through this window and the old women also did. She began to walk vapidly limply closer to me. She wore a yellow musty dress that hung over her wrinkly shoulder sloppily. The color of the dress was revolting, a smoldering unclean yellow. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. Her face was in awe, like she knew me somehow. But I didn’t know her. I had never seen her face in my life. I had never seen that time worn droopy skin, those blood-flecked milky blue eyes, that river-silver hair. We both simultaneously put our hands up to the glass. Her knotty misshapen fingers listlessly came to mine. That’s when I heard the voice.
“I am a mirror. When you are around me you see who you really are. I am a mirror. I am truthful. I am hurtful. I can’t keep a secret. I am a mirror. I do as is. I only show you honesty. Loyalty. I am a mirror. The way you treat me is the way I treat you. I observe all day. Taunt all night. I am a mirror. I’ll always see you exactly how you are, an old delirious women.”