The Boy in the Mirror

‘When I look in the mirror I see nothing.’

         As an artist I take great pleasure in the act of creation. Seemingly incongruous materials, in the hands of a skilled craftsman, can become a whole entirely separate from its composite parts. But what is it in us that perceives the sublime and the beautiful – what kind of mechanism in our brains quantifies the value of beauty?

         I wipe the smear of red gore from my cheek with the back of my hand, and walk towards the mirror dominating the west-facing wall of the operating room. The dim lights buzz on and off, and flickering shadows cross the floors and tables like children at play. I am told that my face is beautiful; certainly there are no visible defects. But my reflection never does what I think it should. When I picture myself in my minds eye, the beauty is evident; in the mirror, my eyes are cold, ice cold, and my smile is a sneer. A naked girl is struggling on the operating table – I can see her in the mirror. Her wrists and ankles are bound and blood soaked.

         When I dream, I see fields of grass, rolling hills blanketed in dandelions and buttercups, all caressed by the golden touch of sunlight. The swellings of the warm breeze riffle across the expanse of my imagination like the flickering of familiar faces in a photo album. There is a girl running towards me, a beautiful girl. Her long brown hair is caught by the breeze and billows behind her. As she nears I can see the sparkle of her big eyes, the flash of a smile. The smell of fresh grass and pollen is on her dress and her voice is as soft and sweet as honey. Hand in hand we run in the chapters of my memory, the never-ending fields of green and yellow unyielding. When we stop, there are tears in our eyes, and they fall onto the golden skin of our cheeks. My sad smile in her eyes is more real than on my face.

         I am interested in the creation of the truth. I say creation because in many cases the truth cannot be simply revealed. My medium is usually the human body; my tools: a scalpel, a carving knife, gauze, forceps, and retractors. The girl on the operating table is not the girl from my dreams. Her name is Daisy Sterling, she lives at 34 Nestin Avenue in London, and her date of birth was the 13th May, 1988. Daisy is, to me, an example of the flawed beauty of the human body. Her face is shockingly pretty; big blue eyes framed by long, curled lashes; full, red, inviting lips; immaculately combed blonde hair. A smile radiant enough to thaw ice. But within that shell lies a creature of malice.

         ‘Daisy.’
I turn from the mirror and walk towards the table. She isn’t as beautiful in the flesh. As I near I see her blue eyes widen and her thrashing become more violent.
         ‘I want you to listen to me very carefully.’
         I am standing over her. Her eyes are ringed with blotches and her breathing is fierce. Though she is not gagged she makes no noise. Before she woke I removed her tongue.
         ‘I am going to make a portrait. A portrait of Daisy Sterling.’ I pause and meet her eyes. ‘The process will cause you great pain and will result in your death.’
         At the word ‘death’ she lets out an anguished moan, an expression undisguised by language yet pregnant with emotion. She begins to jerk against the restraints, her mouth frothing with spittle and blood.
         ‘The reason I removed your tongue is so that you can appreciate communication without deception.’ I speak over her frenzied movements and grunts. ‘All your life you have lied, you have deceived, and you have cheated.’ Her cries force me to raise my voice further. ‘Your moral bankruptcy has been made clear to me by your torture and murder of your neighbour.’ At this, her struggling wilts, and her hoarse voice breaks into quiet sobs.
         ‘Your parents christened you Daisy, and that will continue to be your name. But the trappings and deceits that you have taken on, I shall shred and remould. People who thought they knew you will not recognise you. But what I create, whether the public accepts it or not, will be a step towards the search for the true self. Only the truth is sublime.’ I plunge the knife into her belly.
         
         Golden shards explode in every direction as I scythe through the wheat field. Beside me my father dances our familiar dance, his blade shimmering, casting shadows upon his golden chest. The sun is our spectator, the wind our applause, though we are blind and deaf to both. A sharp whistle and a fierce clang of metal on metal: our blades lock as we close – then away with animal grace, laughing, wind whispering as we circle back for the finish. The stalks are bending over us – they block out the sun as he spins on his heel and plunges to the ground like a needle into diseased flesh. I catch the spray on my tongue, and the scent of divinity is on me. I am Oedipus Rex. I am exultant. I am golden and beautiful and elemental!

         I cannot remember my name.

         ‘This is sick.’
         ‘I know.’
         ‘No. I don’t think you do know. I don’t think you’ve absorbed this.’
         ‘I have.’
         ‘No you haven’t. You’re lying.’
         ‘I don’t lie.’
         ‘Fuck off.’
         ‘I don’t lie.’
         ‘This is an operating room designed for helping sick people. Not only have you destroyed any semblance of purpose this room once had, you have cut a jagged line in your own conscience. That’s why you can’t think properly.’
         ‘Who’s to say I was thinking properly before?’

         The creation of Daisy Sterling took me approximately seventeen hours. I am unable to say exactly how I produced the final piece, but I can present you with a detailed description. The piece has been nailed to the wall of the operating room opposite the mirror. Daisy’s head is shaved, so as to represent the shearing of any strength she once possessed. I was somehow able to drain the contents of her skull; her brains are clogging one of the sinks. I have scored three lines in each of her eyes, each beginning at the centre of her pupil and moving outwards in the cheeks or forehead. The lines represent the Miltonic trinity of human thought: appetite, will, and knowledge. Her ribcage is bloody and splayed open and I have removed her bowels, except for her stomach, which represents the supremacy of her appetite. Thin, membranous wings, formed from the skin of her arms and legs, are pinned at the shoulder and at the hip. Her mouth is lipless and her teeth, dotted with blood, have been filed into jagged points. From all angles, it is a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. Upon closer inspection, the pinning back of the ribs and the preservation of the stomach has been flawlessly executed and –
         A hiss of breath in my ear. I look up – into eyes on fire, demon mouth smiling and dripping; fingers lock around my throat with a snap as dead sinews crackle into life. I fling myself backwards – and with a rip of skin and flesh the nail erupts through the back of her head and she comes to life on top of me, sharpened fingernails clawing at my eyes, raking away my face. Flailing my legs, I push a frenzied hand to her face; feeling solid flesh I grasp it and jerk violently, snapping cords in her neck – a shriek, and then a sharp pain in my throat, a slit opens and I feel warmth rush out onto my chest – my hands go instantly to stem the wound but the blood gushes and I choke on my scream, my heart hammering as those eyes of fire, like little suns, burn into the fading blue.

         I can see myself. In her eyes. My face is ridged like a lizard, and scaly. Devil’s horns and yellow eyes. Have I found myself? My family gave me a name – it was the name of my father. It gave me a home, and an inheritance – my duty was to be always proud of myself and my name. My sister and I would have long conversations when we were younger.
         ‘Who was it that decided we were to be born rich?’
         ‘No-one decided, we just are.’
         ‘But we could have been born in poverty. We could have been on the streets.’ There is an image, somewhere in my mind, of mingling blood pooling into the gutters of Brixton, the easy parade of traffic wailing, neon lights buzzing.
         ‘Well then, thank whoever you want to thank, because we’re lucky to be rich.’
         ‘I don’t want to be rich. I want to have a fresh start.’
         ‘That makes no sense. Everyone starts with what their parents give them.’
         ‘I will have a fresh start, Bella. I can be whoever I want to be.’
         My sister would look at me with her brown eyes like melting chocolate. As I gazed back I always found that things would become clearer in my mind; the little trivia and nonsense that constantly found its way into the front of my psyche would crumble and disintegrate into her deep, deep eyes.

         ‘You never killed father, did you?’
         Those eyes again. They bore through the paned glass that separates us. I am in prison now, incarcerated for a horrible murder. The whole place is so grey, after a day my vision lost its affinity for colour, and now Bella’s eyes are so rich with brown I can barely see.
         ‘Look at me.’
         I can’t.
         ‘Look at me, you fuck!’
         She pounds the glass, her face contorted with…is it rage, or guilt? I could never read Bella’s face. I still can’t meet her eyes. I shut my mind and think about colour. I think about the fields of unyielding green and gold. I think about Daisy Sterling, and the beauty of blood and truth.

         I am in darkness. I open my eyes – I am staring into a baby blue sky, dappled with white clouds. Around me are the fields of yellow and green. I feel the softness of the grass underneath my naked back, and the breeze against my cheek. The smell of pollen and buttercups is like coming home to Bella’s cooking. I sit up and the world spins, but everything is the same. There is no whirling in my mind…when I reach in, there is no rush of mortal doubt and shame – just a calm, calm sense of completion. I look down at the man next to me. I say, ‘this is the story of a lost boy, who had everything he ever needed handed to him, but who wanted nothing, except to know the answers.’
         ‘I wouldn’t say lost is the right word,’ he says.
         ‘I think it’s the only choice. I was lost. To my family. To my peers. And that’s all that matters, because you can’t see yourself. You can’t see yourself in the mirror. You can’t see what other people see.’
         ‘But everyone sees something different. Can’t you understand that, after all this? After all you’ve done?’

         The pounding of my heart is failing now. I can hear the blood gushing, feel it steaming all over my throat and chest. My eyes are glazing, the colours fading. All but the red. I can see the red.