The Mirror

The Mirror

I have a mirror, a beautiful mirror, that at times, doesn't seem like a mirror at all.  It sits on my dressing table so that when seated there, I can see myself from head to hip.  It is oval in shape, gilded with gold and the ornate patterns of leaves with the odd bird peaking out seems so life like, it is as if the birds are looking around the room trying to figure out where to fly to. The glass reflects perfectly what ever it picks up but this day just what it picked up, I don't know.

I sat down to brush my hair before leaving for an appointment.  Dressed in my best navy pant suit with low black heels, I picked up my wooden hairbrush and as I raised it to fix my short fair hair, I raised my eyes to the mirror.  The woman staring back at me also had the brush, the same brush, in her hand, paused, as I was.

Her dark hair hung to her waist, slightly unkempt and I thought to see small leaves and birds in there as on the edge of my mirror.  Her hair had a wildness about it but the overall feeling was one of no longer caring for it. 

Dark, sharply angled brows over light grey eyes.  Eyes that looked like they had once been blue but the colour had been leached out from disillusionment. 

A straight nose and full lips, perhaps the lips may once have been called sensual, now dry, parched it seems, as if all the water in the world would not slake the thirst found there.

The face and body gaunt, hungering for a nourishment that was never to come, or perhaps never received.  Wrists, elbows, collarbones and jawline starkly beautiful and tragically fragile.

A strange choker encircled her throat, I thought it to be made of a deep red velvet with a delicate line of rubies hanging down like droplets of blood.

But her dress, that was what caught my eye.  It suited her and her visage yet so terrible it seemed to me.  Short sleeved and with a plunging neckline, the material was a pale yellow gauze overlaid with deep red velvet flowers.  The flowers were vast and layered over one another like great bruises with the older yellow ones, that is the gauze, more faded, showing through.  It seemed like her sadness, sorrow and pain was bleeding out through her skin and that this is what we would have seen reflected on the surface if indeed one could see such things.

She was beautiful and ancient and those eyes looked like they had seen everything that was, is and will be.  Yet none of it touched her or perhaps it had touched her so deeply she had need to close off, shut herself away.

I felt an overwhelming sadness looking at her and tears welled up in my eyes in sympathy for her. I noted a silver streak rolling slowly down her cheek and with our raised hands brushed the tear away.

How odd to be looking at one's own reflection and not recognise the face.  I stared, fascinated and moved closer to the glass watching as her hand, my hand, our hands, descended replacing the brush gently on the dressing table.  "Who are you?" I whispered and though her lips moved as mine did I heard her replying after me, "Who, are you?".

I gasped and moved quickly away, putting distance between myself and that which I had seen.  Unable to see into the mirror, I quickly brushed back my hair, straightened my suit and left without glancing back. 

My heart pounded until I had left the apartment and I stopped with my back to the closed door to compose myself and catch my breath. 

I moved through the rest of my day all in a daze and somehow with her sadness in my heart.  I could not help to think of the lady in the mirror, with her beautiful, horrible dress and unkempt hair and wonder if she sat there still.

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Word count: 685