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

Mary no longer put the bedsheet over the mirror. They had both pushed their beds against the glass, and it was as if they lived together in one big apartment. They ate together, watched TV together, had sex, albeit on either side of the glass, as best they could. They loved the feeling of waking in the morning next to their partner. Looking across at each other, their faces only inches apart. They would dress together, make their beds and share a morning chat over breakfast before kissing through the glass and going to work. When they came home from work they would talk about the events of their day, who they saw, who said what.

They would cook dinner at the same time and talk as they prepared it. They would make the same meal so that they could sit down and share the same things. They would clean their teeth at the same time and simultaneously jump in to bed to wish each other ‘good night’, face to face. They would lie on their pillow and gaze at each other until sleep overcame them. To all intents and purposes they were a normal couple, deeply in love.

            Danny had been becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation. He wanted Mary. He loved her. He wanted all of her, not just a simulation through a glass wall. He came up with a plan. He would break the mirror, removing the barrier between them. He wasn’t 100 percent confident that the plan would work but he didn’t know of any other way. In any case, they must have been brought together for a reason. Surely this would be a natural progression in the strange occurrence; this unbelievable phenomenon in which they had become willing participants. He tried to wrap his mind around the impending result of the mirror’s removal. Would he be with Mary in room 27 in the year 2016, or would Mary be in the room with him in 1997? He had niggling doubts and fears that it would work at all, that neither scenarios made sense, but ignored them in favour of the thought of a favourable outcome.

        “I don’t know, Danny,” said Mary, when Danny went through his idea with her. “What if it doesn’t work?”

Mary wasn’t fully content with their love affair through the mirror, but she had deep fears and reservations that they might upset the status quo and somehow destroy the magic that had brought them together. She wanted so much to be able to touch Danny in the flesh, and to feel his touch on her body, but she did not want to take the chance and risk losing what they have. She had Danny, and to her, that was the most important thing in her world. Danny WAS her world. But deep down she didn’t really believe that it could continue forever.

 “We have to try, Babe. What if this magic disappears? What if this miracle is only temporary?”

“Yeh,” she replied. “You’re right. But I’m really scared. What if it doesn’t work and I never see you again?”

“If it fails, I’ll meet you in 19 years. 19 of my years, I mean. I can wait Mary. It will be hard, but I love you, and I’d wait a lifetime if I had to, to be able to touch you just once. For you it could just be minutes from now.  But I’d be about 39 years old. How would you feel about that?”

“I wouldn’t care how old you are, Danny.”

“Mary, there must be a reason we’ve met like this. Our lives changed the moment we saw each other in the mirror. Now history itself has changed. The way I see it, we have some choices. Some different possibilities. We could stay as we are, knowing it could either stay like this and we might grow old together looking at each other through the mirror, or it could stop anytime and we could lose each other. If that was the case, I could wait nineteen years to meet you here in 2016. That is of course if you are there. Now that history has changed there are no guarantees of anything.”

Mary nodded to indicate she understood.

Danny continued “I could try to find you right now, in my time, 1997. You would be a baby, and I would stay in the background until you are grown. That seems kind of weird, Mary. It’s like I would be a paedophile or something.”

“Agreed,” replied Mary.

“Or we could put all our hopes in this” he said. “We could bet everything on this chance to be together.”

Mary lowered her head to think. This was the most important decision she had ever had to make in her short life.

“Danny, it’s possible that if it didn’t work, we may never see each other again.”

“It has to work. I can’t stand this. I need you with me, Mary. I want to be with you for real. I feel like I loved you before I even met you.”

Mary thought long and hard through the confusion, weighing the different options and risks. Her mind was swimming. She tentatively made a decision, one that she prayed she wouldn’t regret.

 “Ok,” said Mary. “Let’s try.”

             She went to the mirror and placed her hands on the glass. Danny did the same and they gazed into each other’s eyes for an extended moment. Mary put her lips to the mirror and Danny kissed her from the other side, feeling the electricity of her love through the glass barrier.

She moved away from the mirror until her back was against the opposite wall. “I’m afraid, Danny. This may be the last time we see each other. Remember that I love you. I always will.”

“I love you too Mary. This will work. I know it will.”

They stood, exchanging looks, savouring this moment, before they will be either united in reality, or possibly separated forever. Mary held up a hand in a slight wave as Danny picked up the chair and pulled it back behind his shoulders for maximum impact on the glass. Mary backed out of the bedroom door to safety from the impending flying glass. She silently prayed.

            Realisation suddenly struck Mary like a dagger to the heart. She turned pale as the blood drained from her face. She knew in that instant that their plan wouldn’t work. Her mind could accept that the laws of the universe could create a window from one era to another and allow a glimpse into another time and place, but there was no way she or Danny could just walk nonchalantly into the past or the future to be with their lover. It would break every universal law governing the time/ space continuum. It would be like the ‘Butterfly effect’, only with a sledgehammer. She understood in that moment that the mirror was not a doorway between their worlds. It was not a gate, it was only a window. She rushed back into the bedroom.

As the chair began its ill-fated arc toward the mirror, Mary screamed “NO DANNY! STOP! DON’T!” but it was too late.

Mary covered her face with her forearms to shield it from the shower of glass fragments. The mirror exploded into her room, small shards of glass hitting her forearms and legs, making small cuts that began trickling blood even before she had realised what had happened. Several small fragments stuck in her flesh.

The room fell silent. She uncovered her eyes.

She looked at the mirror, now with a huge hole blown out of the centre. There was nothing behind it but a brick wall. Mary looked around her room. Blood dripped to the floor from the small nicks in her arms and legs but she felt no pain.

“DANNY!” she called. “DANNY! WHERE ARE YOU?”

There was only silence. Mary walked to the mirror and put her hands on the wall in the mirror’s gaping hole where she had seen Danny standing seconds before. He was gone.

In the silence Mary sunk to the floor, oblivious to the shards of glass cutting into her knees, her sticky blood forming a small pool on the old wooden floorboards. She screamed.

“NO! DANNY! NO!” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

Chapter 10

           In the weeks following the loss of Danny, Mary had descended into a depressed state, retreating into her protective shell, unable to confide in anyone, not even her closest friend Adele for fear of ridicule and disbelief of her story. She was afraid people would think she was mentally disturbed.  She knew they wouldn’t understand. All she could say was that Danny had suddenly disappeared, and that she didn’t know the reason.

           Mary had prayed that Danny would knock on her door shortly after the breaking of the mirror. When he didn’t show, she had come to accept the explanation those nineteen years were too long for him to wait even though their love for each other had seemed so strong. She realised that in Danny’s time, she had already been born and was no more than a baby. He couldn’t wait in the wings for her to become a woman. She knew Danny would have needs, emotional as well as sexual. Deep down she felt it would have been so selfish of her to expect him to wait for nineteen years for her. It still didn’t make it any easier. He had probably met another girl in that nineteen year period. He may even have a family now, maybe even teenage kids. And while Danny would have long ago gotten over the trauma of their separation, Mary’s heartbreak had just begun.

            She had gotten the glass replaced in the mirror frame, and had sat there night after night, staring into it, her mind focusing on the image of Danny’s face, praying and wishing he would come back, that he would magically appear as he did before. The only face she saw was her own; drawn and tired and shattered, just like the mirror on that fateful night, weeks before. Night after night she experienced the same disappointment, the same heartache, the same tears and the same crying herself to sleep.

          Mary came to a decision. She would try and find him, if only to seek closure. She knew that if she did find him she would have to be prepared to acknowledge that he had a wife and family, and with so many of his years having passed, she would have to accept that he may not want to have an interest in her except as a forgotten girlfriend from the distant past.

Her first place to check was the apartment manager who lived in one of the ground floor apartments, where he had an office.

Mary knocked on the door and Mr Albany, a man aged in his fifties answered. Mary had met him once when she had moved in few months before.

“Yes?” he said as he opened the door, taking in the sad appearance of the young lady before him.

“Hi” said Mary. “I’m Mary Oswald. I live on the third floor. Room 27.”

“Yes Mary, I know who you are. What can I do for you?”

             Mary stood there nervously fidgeting with her hands, not quite sure where to start. She had lost the confidence that she had when she had Danny and she had once again become somewhat withdrawn and had disassociated herself from the world around her.

“Come inside Mary. Whatever it is, let’s see if we can sort it out,” said Mr Albany, noticing her nervousness. Mary entered his apartment and he closed the door behind them. Mary noticed the apartment had probably not been redecorated for thirty years or more.

“Sit down, Mary” he said. “Can I get you something? A drink?”

Mary shook her head. “No thanks. I’m fine.”

“So tell me. What’s the problem? How can I help?”

“I’m trying to find a friend. He lived here about 19 or 20 years ago.