Look Away
I hadn’t meant to get fired today, but on the other hand, maybe I had. It was the first day of being officially unemployed, but if I’m being honest with myself, I hadn’t done any real work in weeks. I hung up my jacket and dragged my feet to the counter, grabbed my bottle of red wine off the shelf and began to drink it. No glass was needed. This was how unemployed people drank wine. Slumping down into the couch, I flicked on the TV and let the sounds of the characters with jobs and families suffocate my thoughts of the opposite.
A knock rang through my ears, jerking my eyelids open. I rotated my wrist to look at my watch. 9:50pm. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I removed the empty wine bottle from my lap and set it on the floor, my knees wobbling as I tried to get up. My head throbbed and my vision was blurry. I stumbled through the darkness and looked through the peephole in the door. Besides the scarecrow resting on the step of my front porch, no one was there. I double checked that the door was locked, and began making my way towards the stairs without much coordination. Being this drunk was not what I had intended when picking up the wine. I had never liked drinking, so I don’t know why I even bothered. I was hoping it would make me relax and forget the events of the day, but it instead intensified my feelings of hopelessness, practically kicking my relief out the door and chasing it down the street.
I made it to the bathroom at the top of the stairs, fighting gravity as it pulled down on my limbs. Flicking on the light, the brightness overwhelmed my senses. My eyes began to adjust while the cold bathroom tile encompassed the soles of my feet.
Seeing more clearly now, I gazed into the mirror. To my surprise, I had terrible gashes and bruises covering my body. No blood, but open wounds exposed to the air, surrounded by puffy swollen skin of black and blue. I reached across my body to touch the affected areas, still watching in the mirror. But, I felt nothing. No pain, no abnormal texture on my fingertips. I turned away from the mirror and looked down directly at my body. The marks were gone. When I looked back into the mirror, there they were again. Like my reflection was someone different from me, her body cut open and abused. It had to be the wine. I hadn’t drank in a while and my eyes were playing tricks on me. I dismissed the thought of this unusuality being anything other, stared at my body for a couple more seconds, and flicked off the lights.
I woke up in the middle of night, the similar knocking sound interupting my restless sleep. But, this time, I was in pain. My body hurt. Everywhere, all over. The pain was searing hot and deep, I felt as though agony and torture had been sewn into my skin. I tried to get up, every movement delivered with blinding misery. I could not stand. I could not think. I could not breathe. I dragged my broken body into the bathroom, and pulled myself up by the edge of the sink. Hot tears trailed down my neck, breaking at the neckline of my T-Shirt. My fingers wrapped around the light switch, I flipped it up. Desperate to see the damage inflicted upon me, I squinted at myself in the mirror.
Gazing into the glass, my body was typical, normal, healthy. No signs of torment or pain. Even my tears were not visible in my reflection. It was the opposite as it had been earlier in the night. The lady in the mirror before had looked hurt, sore, almost dead. But, now it has switched. I looked hurt, sore, almost dead, and the lady in the mirror did not. She was the spitting image of me, dark hair and blue eyes. Yet, she was untouched. I yanked my eyes away from her and peered down at my body directly. I was covered in bruises, covered in gashes. The same gashes, the same bruises the lady in the mirror had earlier in the exact same places. The inhumane pain pulsated through me and mixed with my confusion. I began to sob, but my reflection began to smile. My body convulsed and weakened, but my reflection stood up straight. My hands reached up and covered my mouth in horror, but my reflection reached out her hand.
The fingertips of my mirror image passed through the glass and grabbed ahold of my neck. With one large tug, I was jerked through what felt like a thin sheet of ice, the pieces falling around me. My body shook as I laid flat on my back, surrounded by an empty tunnel of total darkness. Staring up, a rectangle of light shone beside and above me. I rose to my feet, my body still writhing in pain. I looked ahead into the light, panic wrapping me in her arms and holding me tight. When I peered through the rectangle, I saw myself. Although, I knew it wasn't really me. I was here, trapped in a dark, otherworldly abyss. And she was in there. In my bathroom, in my world. The sinister grin plastered on her face drained my body of anything hopeful. This wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t just the wine. She had switched places with me and forced her pain into my body. I pressed my hands against the glass. I was trapped. She was free.