The Mirror

In the slickest corners and cavities of the mind lies vanity, waiting.
I see him as a wolf, teeth bared, hair on end, snarling; but others may find him calling in other, less vicious guises.
Take my friend Laura, for one. She visits me once a week, usually on a Thursday, and in the morning we talk over coffee.
A few weeks ago she was telling me about this one guy she was seeing, Paul we’ll call him, and how this guy has mirrors everywhere. She says it’s so he can see himself, turn himself on, while he’s in the middle of things, with her.
At first it didn’t bother her. It was like something from an 80s movie and she even admitted to finding it a little bit sexy. She didn’t even mind that it was his own masculinity that was doing it for him, as much as her perfect little body. They were both using each other for the same ends.
So he asks her, afterwards, if she is freaked out by the whole mirror thing. She says she’s not, says she quite likes it really. And that was the catalyst for him to go and do something pretty dumb.
Next time she’s over (just the other week) he tells her he has a surprise for her. “Come on, it’s in here,” gesturing towards the bedroom. So, he’s installed a mirror, above the bed. I mean, who is this guy, Patrick Bateman or something?
She’s a bit freaked out, Laura, but she’s come a way and it makes sense to stay over. He doesn’t seem like he’s a psycho or anything and the night continues as normal, only, she can’t stop looking in the mirror. In this huge sheet of glass he’s suspended over the bed.
In the end, this guy, (Paul, we said his name is) ends up getting annoyed, rolling over and snoozing much earlier than usual.
But Laura is transfixed. She can’t sleep because she’s looking at this amazing, beautiful creature, smiling dangerously back at her. And every way she moves, every time she’d stroke her leg or brush back her hair, this dazzling thing in the mirror did the same.
She said she fell to sleep dreaming of herself, and when she awoke she remained a long time on the bed, when she should have been getting ready for work.
Thursday, just gone, was the last time Laura came round to mine. That’s when she told me all the latest about Paul. I said: “He sounds crazy, he sounds like a psycho. You said yourself, just last week, you thought he might have been a psycho.” But she just laughed at me and said I was silly, and I forgot about the conversation and started tickling her.
I haven’t got a mirror over my bed, just a skylight and a long sloping roof. I live on the top floor of the building. Nowhere for me to fit a ceiling mirror.
In the morning, though, Laura was acting strangely. She asked if we could take our coffee in bed. She’d booked a day’s leave and wanted a relaxing Friday morning, instead of the usual panic with deadlines and suppliers, etcetera.
I kept seeing her, glancing up towards the roof, looking for something. We talked though, almost as usual (except that we were still in bed) and, when I had finished my coffee, I explained that I had a few people to meet and some things to buy, but if she stuck around I’d come back and buy her lunch.
She agreed. She said she was just fine lying there on the bed, and that I was not to worry. With her lying fully back now, I was able to roughly follow her gaze and saw that she had positioned herself so that she was able to see a partial reflection of herself in the skylight glass. Honestly, she was transfixed.
I put on my coat and walked out the door. But instead of heading on downstairs and across the street to the underground, I decided I would play a little trick on my proud little Laura.
Heading up the stairs I pushed open the fire doors and blinked in the morning glare. The city honked and shone before me. Slow reflections of God’s fingers reaching up towards the clouds.
Climbing a short metal ladder, I clambered the narrow platform that ran in between either side of the sloping roof. It’s not as dangerous as it sounds because there’s a railing on either side, for workmen to hold onto.
When I got to the edge of my skylight I readied myself, preparing to give that preening beauty below a sight she was certainly not expecting to see.
I steadied, counted to three and then leaned over, with a terrible snarl on my face and shouting: “Hey, Laura, what the hell are you looking at?”
The next moments passed in staccato. I saw her scream with very real shock, turning to horror. I’d put my hand down for support and it had gone straight through the glass. I reached out with my other hand for the safety rail but gravity was doing its work now and my body tumbled lazily forward through the skylight.
I remember the feeling of falling, and the sound of glass and wood breaking at the same time. I heard Laura screaming and I heard slicing.
My full weight poured down like mercury upon her perfect little body.
It was agony, pulling my impaled body off her crushed shell. I staggered about bleeding bitterly from my chest, my blood mixed with hers.
I stared at her there, stared at the crimson bed. I couldn’t really see it, but I felt I needed to.
I opened my wardrobe and pulled out my old SLR camera. I managed to fire off the flash bulb about 10 times before the blood loss dropped me.
Somewhere, in the sickest corners and cavities of my mind, the images wait to be viewed.