Mirror Mirror

The bathroom faucet is silver and has a scratch down the side from the time when you were playing Jedi with a metal pipe and it slipped out of your hands. Your mother blew into the bathroom like a storm.

What is wrong with you? she yelled.

These are the only words you have in your head. These are the only words you ever have in your head. These are the only words you have in your head. You look down. Not up. Never up. What is wrong with you?

The words cascade through your thoughts. Flowing over every solid memory, covering them like water. 

What is wrong with you?

***

The bathroom faucet is silver and has a scratch down the side from the time when you were playing Jedi with a metal pipe and it slipped out of your hands. You look at that scar of joy as you pick up your toothbrush and spread a thin layer of blue paste onto it before jamming it into your mouth. The water pours out of the faucet, rolling down the side of the sink, flowing over the edge of the drain. Down into the blackness of whatever. The faucet screams water in its high pitched voice.

What is wrong with you?

***

The bathroom faucet is silver and has a scratch down the side from the time when you were playing Jedi with a metal pipe and it slipped out of your hands. You look at that. The happy memory. You look at that while you stab your teeth. You look at the sink. You look at the drain. You look at the counter. You look down. Always down. Only down.

You look at the seam where the counter joins the wall, collecting water and turning into the line like a black slug, wet and wriggling. It is the slug that once slid up your throat and out of your mouth in front of Richard.

That was a dream. That didn’t happen. That always happened. Every time, that happened. Do you know a Richard? Someone played all the time with his best friend Richard. That wasn’t you. It was something inside you. Something writhing and screaming and black and wet and wriggling. Something gross inside you played with that boy named Richard. 

What is wrong with you?

***

The bathroom faucet is silver and has a scratch down the side from the time when you were playing Jedi with a metal pipe and it slipped out of your hands. You look at that. You look down. Only down. You brush your teeth and you look down.

You need to wash your face, so you pick up the soap and rub it in your hands. You bend down to the sink and rub the soap over your face. You splash the water on your face and rinse off the soap and reach for the towel.

The towel is up.

The towel is next to the mirror.

Your eyes slide across the mirror like oil gliding over a hot skillet. Rivulets of sight making the barest contact with the scalding image. You close your eyes as you press the towel into your face. The cool fabric of the towel coats your face in darkness. You don’t want to open your eyes. You don’t want to see it. It makes you sick. It makes you confused. It makes you hate everything you’ve ever known. It is not you.

It makes you scream.

What is wrong with you?

***

The bathroom faucet is silver and it is safe. It is right. It is what it is meant to be. The faucet is a faucet, and inside the faucet there is just more faucet. Faucet is supposed to be faucet and is faucet. The faucet is safe to look at because it is what it is. It is not broken. It is not twisted. It is just faucet. So you look at the faucet. You look only at the faucet. You look at the scar of joy carved into its side. You don’t look up. As you brush your teeth, as you wash your face, as you do anything at all in that home of the looking glass, you don’t look up. To see the thing standing before you.

And then you do. 

You don’t know why. You don’t want to. But you do it. You look up. You look into the looking glass and see it. You look into its strange eyes. You look into that ugly shape. And you feel the slug, wet and wriggling, crawl out of your stomach.

It flows over every solid object, covering them like water.

Terra Kestrel is an anthropologist and geographer. She writes speculative fiction and poetry often focusing on themes of equality, intergenerational trauma, love, hope, and healing. She lives in rural Oregon with her wife, children, cat, and an embarrassingly large collection of fountain pens.

A Song for Terra