"Mirror"
Draft of another piece of stream-of-consciousness experimental fiction...
whose is this narrow face staring back accusation in the eyes or regret or recognition or lack of any feeling and squinting blurs its edges like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription and when i do i see her reflected back and it’s uncanny this duplication being sprung from the same mould more than a trace a physical form carrying the imprint of history of legacy of betrayal telling the world not everything about who you are although the world might assume that but some part of where you came from her history overlaid on yours like thin and crinkled carbon paper you would consign to the bin as if in doing so the past might go with it wipe the dna-slate clean allow you to look in the mirror and say this is me not this is my mother’s daughter and when i was still a child i did childish things played in the park invented games with my friends fantasy was my motto and if we watched films to pass the time movies nurtured that in me too perhaps one day or for more than one day i was dorothy with my bright red shoes toto the dog i could never have and how we skipped the yellow road not cowardly nor made of tin or straw until in a momentary glance perhaps a single frame smuggled inside a scene the narrow face and in that face i saw and knew my mother was the wicked witch come from the west’s dusk and into my life to taunt and torture me and she never left she is here still not close but close enough not dead but alive enough i can feel her malevolence as it travels the motorways silently traverses the train tracks i can hear her whispering accusations that nagging voice asserting my inadequacy and arm’s length is not far enough nor is another city another county and sometimes when i am least expecting it i see her again the wicked witch of the west glaring out of the mirror and they ring me with updates the staff paid to care though how do you care for a witch and it’s interesting how time has warped their tone the slide away from the upbeat away from encouragement the positive picture they were painting probably inaccurate unrealistic more impressionistic than anything as if i would fall for the soft colours the magic trick they were trying to pull verbal sleight of hand come they were saying she wants to see you they were saying standard patter bestowed on the absent all the while hoping to pass the baton for an hour or two to give them a chance for a chat put their feet up have a fag after all we’ve earned it and don’t think i haven’t noticed how over time the tone hardened the messages from the front-line less optimistic so i threw filters onto the phone and picked out their anger disappointment disapproval theirs as well as hers but i’ve done my time i want to say i’m a fully paid-up member even if i never wanted to be and i have the scars i see them every time i look in the mirror so why can’t you because you’re never here and perhaps more than fellow-feeling their desperation for relief trumped care triggered my panoply of excuses as i navigated further from the truth but they had their own filters too i’m sure of that we’ve heard it all before they never said but thought it and so in the end i gave them silence listened without hearing when they called and i took the phone to the bathroom and stared at myself as they spoke to remind me why i hadn’t gone for weeks why i was silent why i didn’t care and all the while i stared at me so she did too i see the bitch every day i wanted to say i don’t need to be there i wanted to be snow white too and live that crude rural idyll so why shouldn’t i have seen me in the mirror as a physical manifestation of Disney’s beauty raven-dark hair red lips beyond red etcetera etcetera mirror mirror on the wall no prizes for guessing who i did see and freud would have a field day the only people i ever wanted to be fictional creations tied to the black hearts of witches her soul probably needs confession more than mine you know the rest so i chose to move this far away a gap measured in hundreds not tens to introduce impossibility so that i couldn’t just hop on a bus or jump on a train so that i could take myself out of the equation cancelled out on both sides of the equals sign lowest common denominator she would probably say just what i’d expect and i absented myself so i didn’t have to be there to bear witness leave some poor third party paid to disentangle her from her life’s detritus the ornaments and mementos photographs of other people souvenirs of other lives anyone’s but mine so handing the money over was easy an antiseptic transaction my inverted version of judas with no attendant unpleasantness absence and the heart’s fondness another myth so what would make a difference what would transform my mirrored experience return the bathroom cabinet to its right and proper purpose don’t think i haven’t thought about it and her carers have hinted at forgiveness though coy about where responsibility lay who makes the first move and in their thinly veiled way they have suggested she is ready but to speak or to listen that’s the question given a world of difference between the two and there’s an unspoken presumption that i might be ready too to listen or speak and they suggest the recovery of lost harmony is just one visit away as if there is a magic wand to be waved to erase the years of demands and abuse of victimisation and punishment of failing to live up to an impossible standard or stoop down to it are slates ever wiped clean i think not and in thinking not i disqualify their premise so there is nothing she could say or i could hear which would be salve enough yes i tell them i will visit but only once more and on my terms when there is no need to listen because she will be unable to speak and armed with black bags i will go through her things not with any desire to keep but to expunge for there is nothing she has in that putrid little oasis of hers her room in a bungalow of purgatory that i want nothing other than space the space vacated by her the silence from telephone calls not made and from requests i no longer need to deny and after that when i return home i will take down my bathroom cabinet smash its mirror put a new one up in its place