Mirror// Fiction by Cithara Patra
Mirror
Every morning, I stare at the woman in the mirror. She stares back, the same sullen look all over her face. She’s got lines on her face, dark circles under her eyes, and that little stubble that she never remembers to shave off. She plucks the black and gray hairs on her chin, flicking them off her fingers and vows to make an appointment at the beauty parlor.
It never happens. She never takes care of herself. Never wears makeup to hide those circles. Never covers up the blemishes that mark her face. Her nails have gunk under them from picking things in every corner. Some are a little too long, others are too short from her biting them. She never remembers to make that appointment at the nail salon either. Then there’s her hair, that eternal bedhead with knots all over. No comb breaks the knots apart. She’s a mess in every part of her life. Her looks, her work, her social life…each is falling apart.
Come on, fix yourself! You can’t stand here forever. You can look much better than this.
Next come her teeth. The wisdom teeth are coming out and they ache as they push through her gums. Her dentist insists she get rid of them. Throw another thousand dollars for a surgery and they’ll get it out. They’ll add on a few expenses, telling her she needs to fill in cavities and get braces, fix those crooked teeth. She hasn’t made her appointment for those. She’s falling behind.
Call them. Move from this spot. Do something.
Do something. She needs to do everything. She needs to find her phone, make those calls, and look presentable again. Look more human. Act like a person. Don’t hide from the world. Be herself. Rise out of the ashes, break the mirror, and forget about the reflection of that sad person looking back. Go back to herself. Go back to being someone respectable.
Go back. Go back. Come on, go back to being you. You can do it!
Then again, she doesn’t have salons to go to. She barely has a home. The storms came through one day, flooding every spot she went to. Her basement filled with water, her roof tore off, her room broke apart. For days, she couldn’t find her phone. She couldn’t turn on lights, drive anywhere, eat warm food, or take hot showers. The news reporters warned her that the storm was coming. It would become a hurricane. Social media threw in tips on how to survive. She followed half of them, ignoring the rest. She was safe for a long time. She was safe from the moment she got home, got in bed, and waited for it to pass.
CRASH!
In seconds, the home came apart. Water poured through and drenched everything that didn’t break. It didn’t save anything she kept in her home. All she had left were pieces of furniture ripped up, torn pictures, and this mirror. No, it’s not a mirror. It’s nothing but broken glass.
She’s distorted thanks to the mirror shattering overnight. That’s what she has left of her old life.
You must move on. You must go forward. Be yourself.
No, I’m not myself. Like the mirror, I’m just a broken woman in a broken home.
Cithara Patra currently lives in NC with their family. They've appeared in journals like CafeLit, 50 Word Stories, and 5 x 7 x 5 Haiku Journal with more pieces to come out with Chewers, The Academy of Heart and Mind, and Poetries in English. In their spare time, they travel around the city and check out brand new places to eat.
