The Mirror by J. Morris (read dune txt) 📕

            Mary would have given anything to go back to that point when she had agreed to break the mirror. She would have given her own life for just one more night with him. She had realised their mistake all too late and had watched their dreams disintegrate with the shattering of the mirror. But Mary wondered if it was fate? Maybe it was meant to happen. Fate has a funny way of working. Did that cosmic power realise its mistake in connecting two people from different times. Was Danny’s demise the universe’s way of righting things before history was irreversibly changed? They say you can’t change fate. And whatever happens in this world can’t be argued that it is not fate. Even our attempts at changing fate could be fate in itself. The wheels of confusion and questions just go round and round.

           Mary rose from the chair and left her apartment, closed the door quietly behind her, and descended down the stairwell. As she walked out of the door onto the street the cool night air made her back shiver through her thin blouse. The streets were deserted except for the occasional late night revellers or persons stumbling home after a night at the pub. Mary went to the Underground and caught a train to the city, getting off at Cannon Street Station. She strolled casually along the riverbank taking in the serenity of the water and the reflections of the city lights on the rippling surface until she arrived at Southwark Bridge.

She gazed up at the ornate old bridge and her eyes trailed down to the dark waters, imagining in her mind that terrible night, an image of Danny falling to his death, afraid and alone. Emily’s words echoed in her mind.

“Thrown off the bridge.”

“Body never found.”

            Mary walked up onto the bridge, high above the river and stood at the railing. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wondered if she was at the same spot that Danny had met his demise all those years before. Was she the last thing he thought about as he descended to the water? She looked at the deep dark waters, knowing that he was still down there somewhere.

           She climbed onto the railing and sat, gazing at the water below. She wondered how many secrets lie in the mysterious depths. The moon and clouds created shadowy patches on the water that appeared in the corner of her eye, but by the time her eyes had turned to the shadows they disappeared and appeared somewhere else.

           How many Dannys are resting on the bed of the river, blanketed in years of silt and mud? How many loved ones had they left behind to live their lives alone in this world. How many ghosts are lying there, forever looking upwards, wanting to see the face of their soulmate just one more time so that they can move on to the next world. Was Danny looking up at her at that very moment, finally finding peace before the mud and silt consumed him for all eternity?

           Life hadn’t really worked out the way Mary had imagined. Her dream of meeting someone who would share her life, to take away the loneliness, to understand her and see her as she really was, not the inept, socially awkward outsider that the world saw, was shattered. But the dream had actually come true. Mary had found her true love, her soulmate. Her mirror image. Their love had traversed time and space. But in a terrible twist of fate, her friend and lover had been dead for 19 years, and paradoxically it was his love for her that had led to his death.

          Mary looked back at her life. She recalled her first day of school as if it was yesterday.  She was teased by a group of girls who laughed at her chubbiness and straw-like hair. They said she had hair like a scarecrow, and it had a profound effect on her. Mary’s shyness set in and she found it increasingly difficult to mix with other students, content to stand in the background and observe. That shyness only led to more ridicule and teasing from her peers. It snowballed and she gradually withdrew from the world around her.

           Her mind went back to when she was fifteen. She was befriended by Steven, a quiet boy who broke through the protective walls that Mary had built around herself. There was an affinity between them, a common view of life as quiet teenagers, although Steven was more outgoing than Mary, and had other friends besides her. They often sat together on the school bus. They shared the same tastes in movies and music, and although they weren’t dating, they had become close.

           Steven liked to talk to Mary and he did most of it, and Mary liked to listen. But she wanted there to be more to their relationship. When Steven talked her eyes would wander over his face. She watched his lips moving, imagining kissing them. She looked into his eyes, at his hair. Often she wouldn’t hear what he was saying, as if she was in a kind of trance.

           Mary had decided to pluck up the courage and ask Steven out on a date, maybe just a movie. It would take all the courage she could muster, but she wanted him. The movie would be her treat. And she wanted to buy him a gift to show her friendship. She knew of a Metallica CD that he had wanted, and she used her allowance to buy it for him. She wrapped it and took it with her to catch the bus. She couldn’t wait to see the surprise on his face when she presented it to him. She boarded the bus with her school bag in one hand and the gift in the other, looking left and right as she walked down the aisle scanning the seats for Steven. She saw him, his arm around a girl from his class, laughing and talking, sharing moments; moments that Mary had wanted to share.

           “Hey, Mary,” he said as she passed by, not realising her devastation.

“Hi, Steven,” she managed to say, without collapsing in a blubbering heap.

She moved to the back of the bus so that no one could see the tears she was about to shed.

            The following five years saw many crushes on boys, but none were acted on. Mary went unnoticed, blending into the background of teenage society. She gradually built her own life, her own bubble with almost impenetrable walls, a fantasy world where Mary could have any boy she wanted in her imagination. That was until Danny appeared.

Danny was a gift from above, from the cosmos, maybe even heaven. He had broken through the walls and looked into her soul, and wanted her, needed her. He loved her just as she was. The constraints of time and space were no barrier to their love. They had shared a complete and full relationship…almost. They had shared their thoughts and their dreams. They had willingly and openly shared their fantasies and their bodies, albeit through a glass barrier. They had given one another everything possible under the circumstances, but they had wanted more; they had wanted to feel the flesh, smell the scent, taste the body of their lover, to experience the other’s warm breath on their cheek and to feel their partner shudder in their most vulnerable moments. They took the only chance they had; they rolled the dice, but ultimately they lost everything.

              Mary looked up at the vast expanse of space and distant stars.  She didn’t hate the world or the universe despite the fact that it had taken Danny from her. But she felt that she had seen all the beauty that this world had to offer and that there was nothing more for her here. There were so many questions left unanswered, but Mary no longer sought the answers. It was too late for that. There was no answer that could satisfy her and give her the comfort she needed.

             She stood and looked into the deep, silent waters below. She inched forward until her toes hung over the railing’s edge. For a fleeting second, Mary thought she saw Danny just below the water’s surface smiling up at her, no longer separated by a glass barrier, and then he was gone, devoured by the cold ever-shifting waters of the Thames.

            Mary lifted her arms as if they were graceful wings about to carry her to another place, another time, another dimension. She pictured Danny in her mind, his image in the mirror, his look of complete love for her. She felt exhilaration as she closed her eyes and smiled, her wings open and ready, and she leaned forward off the railing into weightless tranquillity. Her light clothes were buffeted by the wind and the cool air caressed her face as she began her flight to her new home with Danny, and the beginning of their eternity together.

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Publication Date: 01-23-2022

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