Based On A True Story (private)

[Fleur]

• 9 October 2012, Night
  
  You’re watching me again. I can feel your eyes burning holes into my shell of a body. I can’t let you out. No matter how many mirrors I break, you remain on the other side. Your image fractures, growing smaller and smaller, all dependent on the sizes and shapes of the fragments. I can’t even reach you beneath shallow waters, where I had hoped you found refuge among sediment. Despite your cage, or perhaps because of it, you remain. For me, it’s the very same.
  
  I’d love to leave this city, even if only to go to the realm of spirits. I’d love to disappear. I have no hope for anyone like me. Most of them behave without any sort of rationality. I say nothing. What is the spoken word to those without ears to listen? What is sign language to one without eyes, one without sight? I’m being pessimistic, and I’ll blame it on my time spent underground. If it weren’t for you, I’d have gone insane. I’d be muttering to myself, communicating with inanimate objects. You saved me.
  
  Do you like my mask today? It’s very festive. I made it myself. I shaped it from clay and added the proper indentations for eyes and lips. I made the lips red. Do you see? Of course you do. You’re pacing back and forth again now. When you cease your snarling and clawing at the surface, you always go back to pacing. I like to pretend that you have limitless energy and the racing thoughts of someone with an attention disorder. It makes me smile, but you can’t tell with the mask in the way.
  
  While my face is forever scarred, yours is not. Your face is much worse than my own, much worse in every way. Your eyes are narrowed, almost to slits. They burn with an intensity of fire, and sometimes they bleed. I’ve seen the blood, you know. Your nose is sharp, easily the sharpest feature, just behind your well-defined cheekbones and the sudden curvature of your jawline. I love your lips though. They are perfect in every way, except when you part them for any expression. When you part your lips, you show off your razor-like teeth and your forked tongue. You’re almost like a serpent or a demon.
  
  Why did you stop pacing? Did you see the look in my eyes? Did you read my thoughts? You are tapping your sharp nails along the surface of the mirror. Tap. Tap. Tap. You’re beckoning me, but I am not playing that game right now. I have no interest in the things in your pockets or the way you mutilate yourself. You take joy in my disgust, but you take joy in my fascination as well. Please don’t smile at me. You look hideous. I look hideous.
  
  I need more stitches.