Mirrored

Mirrored

“Come on, honey.”

Mara turned to look at me, distant as she had been for days now. “I’m coming,” she said, stepping out from under the shade of the carnival game we had just played.

She matched my stride as we kept walking, her t-shirt swishing slightly in the wind. “Are you okay?” I asked for the third time that day.

She didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Alright.” We walked a little further. “Wanna go into the funhouse?”

The ghost of a sad smile flitted across her face. “Alright.”

We entered and a thousand mirrors assaulted my image and twisted it into a thousand farces. I was delighted. “Look at my nose!” I said, looking over at Mara.

She seemed utterly unaffected by the experience. But as I looked, I noticed that the same was not the case for her reflections. The wavy mirror in front of her showed her in a bright floral dress, astonishingly beautiful against a backdrop of rain. Just like the day I met her.

I faltered. “Mara?”

“Let’s keep going,” she said.

We moved along. The next big mirror bent my reedy physique into something approaching your stereotypical opera singer. Having already put the incident in the previous room out of mind, I looked back at Mara.

Her reflection was pregnant.

I stepped back in shock, head darting between the image and the reality of Mara. “I thought… but… we said….” I laughed; a dry, mirthless laugh. “Just the mirror, haha. Let’s keep going.” But as I moved on, I couldn’t help but notice that the reflection was wearing a maternity gown.

Now, the mirror splintered my reflection into a jumble of pieces. I hardly bothered looking at it. Mara walked in behind me and like a magnet, her reflection pulled my gaze.

She was at the side of a white bed, a little boy tucked inside, tubes and wires connected to his body, monitors beeping in the background. She was stroking his bald head gently, smiling and crying. The white walls invaded the dark tent of the funhouse.

“Tristan…” I whispered, frozen on the spot. I looked away from the reflection at Mara. “What… what’s going on?”

She just smiled her sad smile and walked past me. “You know, my love, you know.”

Drawn, I followed.

Now there was only a plain mirror, flawless in its reflection. Every detail of Mara was perfectly replicated, every strand of hair, every curve of her body, every feature immaculate. She was beautiful. My love for her surged like it never had before.

“Mara, my love,” I stepped towards her.

And then my reflection shattered me. I couldn’t look away. I was on the ground next to a twisted mass of metal, blood on my hands, an unrecognizable shadow in my arms; I was ignoring the uniformed man trying to ask me questions; I was looking at the shadow and crying like a madman. And then the mirror in its perfection showed every detail of the shadow’s face, every detail of Mara’s face, all my tears fallen on her perfect, living, breathing, joyous-

“NO!” I ripped my eyes from the image. “No!” I was shaking.

Mara looked at me, the ghost of a smile haunting her lips, haunting me. “You know, my love.”

I wept. “Don’t lie to me, Mara, don’t lie! Not this!”

She glided towards me, her reflection dead in my reflected arms.

My knees gave way and I started to fall just as she caught me. “I love you, I always have. I loved you in this world and when it’s your turn, I’ll love you in the next.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry….” My voice trailed off. She cradled me in her arms, me crying, while my reflection, crying, cradled her in my arms.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Now that you know, now that you can let me go, you can keep going with your life.” She held me tight for a second before standing up again. “Come on honey.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes, looked up at her. I managed a weak smile. “I’m coming.”