                       The Other Side of the Mirror


     Charles Mullins awoke with the knowledge of what he had to
do.  He smiled at the memory of the dream he'd just had;
everything had been perfect.  Too perfect...
     Sweat coated his arms lightly and he shivered, though he'd
gone to bed in a t-shirt and jeans.  He sat up in the dark and
swung his legs over the side of the bed.  
     Can I really do it?
     He stood up and was immediately overcome with a sense of
unfamiliarity.  Where am I?  
     That was always his first thought upon awakening.  Even nine
years ago, when he'd been ten, he could remember waking up in the
dead of night, safe in his own bed, with his mother snoring
softly in the other bedroom, and he would wonder where he was,
who he was.  At first, the answer would not come to him.
     His dreams were the only place that seemed real to him, the
only place where he had an identity.  When he awoke, that
identity would cease to exist.  He had come to the conclusion
that he was living out the wrong life, that someone somewhere
else was trapped in his life, and thinking the very same thing. 
Lately, it had become difficult for Charlie to tell the
difference between fantasy and reality.
     He wiped the sweat from his forehead and crept silently down
the dark hall into the kitchen.  He opened the drawer under the
counter and withdrew the largest knife he could find-- not a
butcher knife, but it would do the job.
     He held the blade up to examine it.  It glittered in the
moonlight that filtered in through the cheap curtains covering
the kitchen window.  He looked at the clock above the stove: 
4:28 AM.
     Charlie crept back around the corner and down the hall to
his mother's bedroom.  She was snoring softly.
     Can I really do it?
     He could see her in the moonlight, her old, thin body
twisted under the sheet.  He could do nothing but stare at her
for perhaps five minutes and remember.
     His hate consumed him.  
     He lowered the knife until the blade was resting under her
chin.  Power filled him and adrenaline rushed through his body. 
His knife hand twitched in anticipation.  
     "Bitch," he whispered.
     She opened her eyes.
     He gasped and jerked, running the blade smoothly into her
flesh.  Blood leaked out from between the wound, and her mouth
froze in a mockery of an incessant scream.  
     The it was over.  In shock, Charlie reached over and flipped
on the overhead light.  There was no doubt that she was dead.  
     He raised the knife to gaze at the red serum gathering at
the tip, as if that alone was going to provide the evidence he
needed to affirm that he had just killed his mother.  More of the
power throbbed within him, sending a surge of adrenaline to every
appendage on his body.
     He couldn't bring himself to let go of the knife yet.
     He stumbled across the room to the bathroom, meaning to wash
his hands.  Tiny beads of sweat had reappeared on his face, and
stained his shirt around the armpits.  His t-shirt--
     "I can't wear this!" he suddenly cried out, frantically. 
Crimson splatters adorned it as if they'd purposely been printed
on it. 
     He started to take off the shirt before he remembered that
his mother wouldn't like it if he paraded around the house
without a shirt on.
     But then he remembered that she was dead.
     A new feeling of freedom and relief filled him, and a tear
slid down his cheek where it mingled with the sweat.
     She's dead!  I'm free!  Isn't she?  Yes.  Forever.  For
good.  She's dead.  I'm free.  Is she really dead?  Yes, I think
so.  Is she?  Yes.  Is she?  Yes.  Is she?
     He tried to shift his mind away from the painful memories--
all the days and nights of being locked in the dark hall closet
alone with no food or hours.  He would cry and beg for hours.
     Mommy please let me out because it's dark and cold and dirty
in here, and i can hear the bugs crawling in the walls and feel
them creeping up my legs and i'm scared it's dark mommy and i'm
scared of the dark please let me out of here i'm sorry i'm so
sorry...
     There were three main waves that affected him in those dark
and dismal hours he spent in the closet:  the hunger wave, the
thirst wave and the bathroom wave.  Soon the three blended into
one raw, searing need to continue life.  
     It became difficult for him to tell night from day; it was
all the same to him, those blurry hours in the closet.  So he
slept when he felt like it, which was most of the time.  He would
awake to the never-ending darkness and the gnawing hunger in his
stomach and unrelieved pressure in his bladder.
     This was where his line between fantasy and reality had
begun to blur.   Those many dark hours seemed dreamlike, yet at
the same time, were very real.  How much time was he actually in
the closet?  Did it matter?  
     Hours melted into days.
     Then his mother would open the closet door one morning, like
a mirage or some kind of angel coming to rescue him, and grab him
up, shivering and faint, into her arms.
     "Got to pay," she'd whisper in his ear, as she fed him warm
chicken soup and gave him cold milk to drink.  "Your father
sinned when he brought you into this world against my will.  Men
are evil.  There's something in a man that's cold and hard,
something that makes him cruel.  Unfortunately, men were blessed
with the ability to hide their ulterior motives until it's too
late to see them.  You will one day grow into a man.  Say you're
sorry."
     "I'm sorry," Charlie would say without hesitation, and
truly, he was, because he didn't know any better.
     "Are you really?" she glared down at him and narrowed her
eyes suspiciously.
     "Yes, mommy, I am."
     But like the hours in the closet that melted into days, the
months in his life dwindled slowly into years.  Charlie began to
seek out what female companionship had been missing in his life
from the girls he met at school.  But when he was repeatedly
shunned, he came to realize that men were not the evil ones.   
Women were the cold, hard, cruel ones.  Women were the ones with
hidden intentions.
     His speculation and fear had turned to hate over the past
year.  He began to detest the entire female gender.  Fuck them. 
He didn't need any of them, especially now.  
     Charlie wiped the tears from his face and stepped into the
bathroom.  He finally allowed himself to let go of the knife,
laying it on the edge of the sink.  He ran his hands under the
warm water, letting the blood trickle down the drain.  As he did
so, he stared into the mirror at his reflection.
     Something about his face was different.
     Charlie dried his hands quickly and began to stare hard at
the mirror, bringing his face closer to it, turning it first
left, then right.  He had always had a slightly handsome, yet
rugged face, blonde shoulder-length hair and dark brown eyes.  He
was a pale man, though, and had always been very thin.  He was
only five foot seven, and knew he wasn't going to get any taller.
     He ran his hand down his cheek, scratching at his razor
stubble, and frowned.
     What is it?
     He couldn't put his finger on it.  At first.  Then it dawned
on him.
     The change he was seeing was an internal one.  His
appearance hadn't changed, he had.  He'd had a taste of the
power, the blood; he had crossed over the line, and something
inside of him knew there was no going back.
     He stared harder into the mirror, searching for himself, as
he had always done.  
     Who am I?  Am I bad because I killed her?
     Yes.  It was wrong.  
     Then why am I so relieved?  How can it feel so right?  Why
do I feel so powerful?
     He gazed into his own eyes, and realized they had become the
eyes of a stranger.  It wasn't even him.  
     He reached out to touch the cold, reflective glass, but
instead felt warm, calloused fingers-- his own.  He laid his palm
flat against his reflection's, his gaze locked with himself.
     Enough of this.  How far can this go?
     He closed his eyes and plunged into the reflection.  He felt
himself sinking into the pit of his inner self.  The walls were
tall and the entrance was narrow and there wasn't any light.  
     Utter blackness surrounded him, enveloped him, began to
suffocate him.  The emptiness deeply saddened and confused him,
before he realized that he was taking a glimpse of his own soul.
     If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you...
     His soul was totally empty.  The pit of nothingness seemed
to extend on forever, yet at the same time, seemed to be closing
in on him, trapping him.  
     ...the abyss gazes also into you...
     That was when Charlie began to scream--
     --mommy it's dark and cold in here and i'm scared so please
let me out i'm sorry i'm afraid of the dark it's so dark and
dirty in here so dark please please please let me out--
     And suddenly, he was out, back in the face of his own
reflection.  Charlie and his image questioned and probed each
other with their eyes:  Who are you?  What are you doing in me? 
Why have you violated me this way?
     Charlie's hand was still flat against his reflection's, and
now he removed it and rubbed the fingertips together.
     Then with one quick motion, he pushed his fingertips into
the mirror, into the unknown beyond.  His fingers felt suddenly
numb.  The reflection's fingers had pushed their way through to
his side.
     Stunned, Charlie pulled his hand away as a tingling
sensation pulsated in his fingers.  He stared at his hand for a
minute, his reflection mimicking the action.  He then raised his
head to stare at himself for one awed instant.
     Then, without thinking, Charlie thrust his arm into the
mirror up to his elbow.  His reflection simultaneously did the
same.
     Charlie wanted to go into the mirror, for there was where he
knew he would find himself.  He would finally know himself, and
know where he belonged.  However, when he tried to plunge his
other arm through, it just wouldn't go. 
     The arm that was branching out of the mirror from his side
maneuvered slowly towards the knife that Charlie had laid by the
faucets while he washed his hands.
     Charlie saw this and jerked his arm out of the mirror,
expecting his reflection to do the same, but it didn't.
     The fingers of his reflection's hand closed around the
handle of the knife and brought it slowly, slowly to Charlie's
chest.
     He gazed at his face in the mirror, and at that moment, he
understood.  He knew that was where he wanted to be, and that
this was how he could get there.
     "Do it," Charlie whispered to himself.  The reflection did
not hesitate.  He drove the cold blade deep into Charlie's heart.
     Charlie gasped, filled with the worst pain he ever knew and
ever would again.  His eyes glowed with the agony, but he didn't
back away or feel remorse.  He was dying, but somehow he wasn't. 
He was just beginning to live.
     When at last Charlie's eyes closed involuntarily with death
and his heart ceased to beat, the reflection's arm pulled the
knife out of him and let him fall to the floor.  
     And finally, Charlie was on the other side of the mirror. 
He was the reflection.  He dissolved into nothing.

     "Matricide," said Officer Larry Holden, surveying the grim
scene with indifferent eyes.  " ...and suicide."
     The sight was enough to turn him away after only a few
seconds of observation.  As he did, something caught his eye.
     What is it?
     Something about the way Mullins was lying caused Holden to
question the integrity of his report.  He finally realized it was
the guy's hands.  He was gripping something--tight--in his right
hand.
     Holden pried the object from Charlie's hand, cringing in
disgust.  It was a piece of paper, folded until it was about the
size of a quarter.  Curiously, Holden unfolded it, smoothing the
edges.
     Creasing his eyebrows, Holden read it, then reread it, then
read it a third time.  When the hell did he have time to write
this?  Holden looked once again at the body at his feet.
     "Did I really kill myself?  Isn't an image in a mirror just
a reflection of the real thing?  Is it suicide when your
reflection, your inner self, is finally found?  Is it suicide
when only one part of you wants to be dead?  Is it possible for
your mind and your soul to be at battle with one another?  Maybe,
maybe not.  Who can say, when a reflection of something in your
past returns to haunt you, whether that reflection is you, or
just a part of you?  I guess you could say that I'm saved now. 
I'm found.  Do people ever really find themselves?  Do they ever
really know what's on the other side of the mirror?"
     There the letter abruptly stopped.  Holden glanced at the
body once more, then at the note, then at the mirror above the
sink.
     Something about his face was different.



@ 1995 by Black Sunshine