The girl from the mire

9

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Rist brushes Jane's long hair in front of a large floral carved chestnut vanity desk mirror. The looking glass is empty of Jane's snow pale face. She's still not used to her absence in the mirror, no representation, as if she's nothing. Not even her shadow shows itself upon the bedroom's hollow facade. She thinks about how this's all a joke and her soul imprisoned body is laughing like legions of tiny osteal fenestra eyeballs from somewhere inside of her existence.

Then she stares deeper into the mirror and notices something move in the depth of the reflection. In the background. In the murkiness. She can witness the dim green glowing lights like eyelids, one by one, opening. As she continues to watch, unblinking, they become clearer. Focused. Apertures of souls. They're blinking and watching her like a blurry staring vignette obscurely bordering primate eyes. Pupils like diseased planets built of cemeteries. Jane turns to look at the room behind and there's only the furniture and Rist. She turns back and the green groaning glow's gone from inside the mirror.

Rist is still in a subtle shock watching the absence of Jane's reflection. She pokes her several times, inspecting her finger while it touches nothing in the looking glass.

"Holy shit, Jane. Wow! This mirror is broken!"

Jane decides to have fun with this strange moment between friends.

"What if I'm the reflection and the mirror is the real world that I no longer exist in? Can reflections die? Maybe you're also a reflection but you can see the real you because you still exist over there. What's the difference between Alice In Wonderland and Alice In Chains? Nothing."

"I appreciate your attempt at humour but you're not funny and this is unsettling."

"I know. It's disturbing for me, too. Though somehow less unsettling than waking up at the bottom of a mire."

"Please stop, if not for me, then for what's left of the little self respect you have."

"How can I stop? I can't even die."

Rist smiles and gives a short laugh. "I feel like a teenager. This makes no sense. It's nice to feel young again."

"I don't feel young. I just feel lost and in a few moments, when the sun rises, I think I'll feel dead."

Rist shakes her head and finally puts makeup on Jane. Black mascara for the green glowing night time eyes and a light brown blush with cranberry red lipstick. When she's finished, Rist crouches and places her hands on Jane's naked bent knees. One of her hands moves down and rubs Jane's calve like she's slowly trying to warm that part of her leg.

"Maybe, while your laying in bed, unable to move, I'll bring people over to have a mock funeral for you. Except the joke will be on them because you'll actually be dead. I'll dress you in black and cover you in white roses from my flower garden in the backyard."

"You have a flower garden in the backyard?"

"No, but I'm sure I do in a reflection somewhere. Don't mess up your face while you're dead, please."

Jane smiles. The fresh hint of morning hits the room and Jane slouches into Rist's arms.

                 ****

Jane wakes upon the queen size bed in the room where Rist was doing her makeup. A mirror on the ceiling reflects the better parts of atoms and a pillow crease of nothing. A painting on the wall is more of a looking glass.  Rigid Blackwood coal frame borders the brush strokes of a dead horse with flies eating sugar from its head and reminds Jane of herself within herself. A Godivean woman kneels and mourns, displaying her bare back upon the chest of the dead animal. She is like the scent of dead flowers crushed in a half read book. And there's a raven. Always a raven with Jane.  Its pouring eyes watch the fourth wall like a spiralling Möbius. Jane remains like a funeral and notices hidden names like eulogies written in the somber romanticism. "Terra" is stroked on the beak of the raven like a fissure exposing the other side of the watercolours through the black bird. The other name is of a birth mark on the horse's hip, "Judith." Oddly, that name is the least gloomy part of the painting. The rest is like lead in the mouth of a dog wearing a collar with four carpenter nails hammered into its neck.