Practicing Positive Self-Talk in a Mirror

"Mirror mirror..." by antkriz

by Lucas Jackson-Peterka

Here’s the thing: there used to be two of us here—me, and the kid (or is it the kid and I?). And the kid used to do everything for us. He cooked, he cleaned, and he would’ve done all this damned laundry I’ve got piling up now if he were still around. 

Just the other day, he hightailed out of here leaving me to deal with the chores all alone. I’ve got to write this now. I have never been so annoyed. Writing was always the kid’s thing and it’s his story to begin with anyway (I was barely even there). 

And really, I am so tired. He’s left the room a mess, left the toilet covered in vomit (and he won’t even be able to clean it until tomorrow). Writing this should be his job when you really think about it. I mean leaving the image of that toilet in my mind would be reason enough for him to have to do it; but for the kid to just thrust it all on me and dip out like his deadbeat father, I am planning an extra special, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious punishment for when he inevitably returns. 

Until then, the story has to go out because I have a deadline coming up, so we’ll all have to suffer through my words. I warned you, writing is the kid’s thing. Grant me grace for any inaccuracies. 

Let us begin: 

Who vomits on a toilet? I mean, in it, sure. But on it?  

Imagine the scene: a half-naked, cracker-barrel-pale, emaciated husk curled up on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom. Drunk out of his mind, the kid wheels his head around to and fro, in some floundering imitation of dance.  

There is no music on except for the rhythmic boom in his ear. His head bobs in time to it, and there is a nice sort of cadence to the screams that eke their way out his near-paralyzed throat. 

Why is he dancing? Or rather—how does one figure to dance while shirtless, and sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor? 

Poorly, for starters.  

He figures to dance poorly.  

Why is he on the floor you ask? Well you see, the kid has just barely managed to drag himself back home while on the verge of blackout. His legs (yes, both of them) gave out the moment the door shut behind him.  

That’s how he ended up here—he is simply too tired to stand. And he dances like that because, well, he knows no other way really. Only how to dance poorly. 

The problem is he can never get out of his own head. The kid ends up thinking—obsessively—dance well but doesn’t notice the distraction of having a thought. Always, this is enough for him to forget that he must just dance. He’s got the heart for it (I’ve always been the first to tell him) if only he didn’t think (I was the first to tell him that too).  

Why do all this thinking when you’d do it better just listening? I think to him all the time. He is too married to thought though. The kid loves the sound of our own voice in his head more than he loves being a lazy shithead (and that’s really saying something) and he especially loves making that voice sound like it’s come up with something smart. 

The drink has him stupid, so tonight he’s decided to dance like shit on purpose. 

“Might as well make it mine,” he says with feigned inventiveness, and I am almost completely overwhelmed by this childish audacity that I set up to strike him.  

He retches. 

Unfortunately, it is just a heave (my kid doesn’t give up that easy), and the pathetic, alcohol-fueled marionette starts up again. 

A contemptuous backhand is raised as near to his face as can be managed without touching. I hesitate when I notice the bruises along my finger beds. It would be such a shame to let him make me crack another nail. 

I just want to know what it feels like, I think. The way he avoids my eyes is infuriating; the tone of his silence upsets me; he thinks, you deserve to die. He does deserve a good beating. 

Shut up, I think back. 

But his dance continues, even while the warning of my strike hangs over. Something in him goads me, dares me to strike. Maybe not right now, I think. It would be quite the mistake for me to prove him right, to make all his pain someone else’s fault (especially when he’s so close to the end). Let him go out guilty, that’s what I say. My hand is lowered—reluctantly. 

Sing-songy croons are stopped by a wave of nausea. Defiance escapes him as I cackle at my turn in fortunes. He flops like a dolphin on the sand, and I kneel down to watch as the life drains out of those intelligent, lonely eyes. 

He has had to fight like this for a long while now, struggling for air in a punishment of his own making. Desperately, he tries to think about all the other times he has been too tired to stand, if only for the solace of solidarity. I remind him that that’s cheating. I remind him he has always been and always will be alone.   

The vomit comes at once. Possessed by newfound, worser sickness the kid can no longer pretend to be in charge. He aims for the toilet.  

He hits every inch of it except for that pool of water that sits in the middle. You know the place in a toilet where you would normally put what one puts in the toilet? That’s the part he failed to hit. 

Nice, he thinks. The “dance” starts up again. 

Can anybody fucking believe this? Look at him! He doesn’t even fucking care anymore. You’re telling me I’m the one who got saddled with all this writing business? You’re telling me this little failure doesn’t deserve to do all the work himself? The kid just graffitied my washroom throne with a mix of vodka and apples, and now he preens over his art like he’s the next Basquiat. 

“Basquiat wishes,” he says, and to emphasize his creative genius, the boy empties the rest of his stomach onto the neighboring floor. 

It’s a nice gesture, but the tag now more resembles a Jackson Pollock, so I compliment him on the ruined simile, and it seems to break his spirit a little. 

“Yeah, but only a little,” I say, before he can (he always hates when I do that).  

Leaving before he can retort, I slip out into the dark, mournful room outside while he tries to stand. An attempt to chase after me, I presume. 

He slips in his own sick and begins to sob. 

Nice, I think at him mockingly, slamming the door behind. Tittering loud enough to hear through the metal-plated door, I bound into the hallway. No one else is there, so I laugh again—this time a lower pitch and flatter tune.  

His fear howls through the wall, incensed by my simulation of horror. I can’t help but press my ear to it so to have the terror touch inside me. A tendril of shame tickles my lobe and the rush of his screams runs through me like blood. I can hear his heart beat so loudly that I almost want to reach through and rip it out myself. 

He will do it for me though, and I feel the wall grow warmer as the thought echoes between us. A blaze threatens to bring the whole building down: the anger, the resignation, his failures its fuel. There is nothing to do now except cackle. As I wait to be consumed by the flames, I lay my head and hands on the floor, laughing in time to the drum that beats on in the burning dorm room. Victory at hand, at last.  

Yet, as I am laid there—anticipating the upcoming funeral, orgasming at his helpless, never-ending agony—a thought waves back at me, through the other side of the wall. 

One can only stand to kneel for so long, he thinks. 

I feel my own fear, clear and icy, tickle its way down my spine. He should be dead by now, I think to myself but no reassuring heat seems to lick at my heels. An odd sense of quiet hums through the hall. Suddenly a pathetic sick of my own floats up to me. For the first time, I notice my nostrils dug into the stained carpet beneath. 

Have I awaited a suicide not to come? Gambled to closely to the sun? I curse the boy for being too scared to die, but the insults bounce right off. The words seem to turn back on me, the effects of their invasion immediate. The tears are unwanted.  

They will not be stopped.  

He assaults me from the other room with his audacity. I can feel the kid stand (how dare he) and all I can see are little threads of fractured light, as the shame pools in my eyes.  

You will not rebel, I think at the tears and yet I am possessed by them. Racked with sobs and convulsions as these liquid insurgents invade my land, I can do nothing but let them run to their vacant existence below. Melded with the carpet and sweat and dirt, they evaporate harmlessly into the late-night air. It does not look as if they have taken anything. 

But I find myself missing my pride. 

I am too scared to go back inside the room. The kid knows it too. He could kill me right here if he wanted (I am so weak). Strike me one last time. Raise that hand to slap me and I would surely crumple into decay. I yearn for him to. I want him to know what it feels like, and I sit before the door, waiting, begging for hours until it finally opens. My knees are scraped bloody. I can see the snow through the window behind him and the pale, early morning sunlight filtering in deepens the shadows between us. Forgiveness flickers across his lashes. He looks like a demon to me, framed by the light. I tremble before him, eager for the death. Still too timid to truly claim it. I will let him do it himself, I decide, resigned to my selfish weakness. 

He merely takes my hands into his. Slowly, he leads me back into the room. Music plays for real now—from a speaker in the corner. I didn’t even notice it turn on. 

We begin to dance. It is a poor kind of dance though. We step forward and back; forward, and then back again. Our clasped hands sway out of time to the beat of the song. 

I hear the heart pumping in my ears. And I remember a night, from months ago, when I danced like this with someone. She’s looking me in the eyes again. 

I say, “This is what you call dancing?” 

“I’m teaching you to dance like shit,” she replies. “That’s the first step.” 

I notice my breast is beating again. “And the next one?”  

“You dance alone,” and she pushes me square in the chest, shoving me out into the middle of the dance floor. 

And then I am alone. She’s nowhere to be seen. 

I’m swaying by myself in the dorm room, the boy gone as well. 

The only remnant of them, is the pounding in my ears as their heart beats on. A shallow little bob, in time with the distant thunder of joy. 

Snow falls, then falls harder—and I feel the ache of a storm approaching. 

A song comes on, “American Boy.” I swallow in fear. 

And I dance.