Too Many Mirrors

 Welcome to The Spot Writers. The prompt for this month is to write a story involving a mirror. This week it’s Cathy MacKenzie’s turn—just in time for Halloween Eve!!!—and she’s on a roll with another story about the Grimes family.

Check out her latest book, 300 pages of crass, crazy, crude, funny, sarcastic, and weird stories about the Grimes’ Christmases, called (what else?): THE GRIMES’ CRAZY CHRISTMASES. Available on Amazon or (cheaper) through the author. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1990589448

Cathy’s writings have been published in over 200 print and online publications. Check out her website www.writingwicket.wordpress.com for further information on her works.

 

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Too Many Mirrors

by Cathy MacKenzie

Elise stood in front of the full-length mirror. She adjusted her extra-large long-sleeved T-shirt, knowing the long sleeves covered her arms for a reason. She sighed, disbelieving she could’ve aged so fast in such a short time. Had she never noticed Passing Time? Jimmy was only sixteen; she hadn’t even hit forty yet. How much worse would her body get? And what about Jimmy? Was he ashamed of his dowdy mother?

What to do? She’d dieted and dieted. She only moderately exercised; she tried to make time to walk around the neighbourhood for the supposed-requisite thirty minutes a day but wasn’t always successful. But didn’t her daily traipsing after Bob and Jimmy count for something?
Glancing at herself again, she shook her head. “Old age is a bitch,” she mumbled. But if it weren’t for old age, where would she be? “In my coffin,” she muttered, answering her question. “In my coffin. Hopefully, one of those fancy burnished ones at Sunshine Gardens and not a cheapie that Bob would select.”
She smoothed down her T-shirt one more time before giving up in defeat. The baggy sweatpants didn’t help matters. She sighed again. She was what she was. Thankfully, neither Bob nor Jimmy had ever made fun of her looks. Then again, she rarely—if ever—received compliments, so that revealed something, didn’t it?

 

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Jimmy stood in front of the mirror that hung on the wall over his dresser. It was a long and low piece of woman’s furniture, with horizontal drawers, so unlike the tall, skinny chest of drawers his father had. But, in times like this, when he needed a clear view of himself, the female-type dresser with the large mirror provided that.

He liked what he saw in the mirror. Halloween was tomorrow: October thirty-first, as everyone knew. Even he knew that! Tonight was his dress run, and he was “dressed to kill,” meaning he had a great costume—not that he’d be stabbing or shooting someone. He didn’t possess a knife or gun to do that deed, though he supposed he could scoff a knife, one of his mother’s largest and sharpest from the kitchen drawer, or he could steal the pill container from his mother’s mirrored medicine cabinet and boff someone that way—
But, no, he wasn’t in the mood for killing. Too young for that. Though the macabre would fit in quite nicely, especially on Halloween night. Nope, he just wanted to parade around the neighbourhood, gathering as many sweets as the king-size pillowcase he’d pilfered from the linen closet would hold. Most kids carried regular-sized pillowcases. Not him. The bigger, the better.
He examined himself again. The costume at $49.98 had almost wiped out his Christmas and birthday savings for five years, not that he’d saved every dollar he received. Due to his height, he’d had to purchase the adult size, which was ten dollars more than the kid’s suit, but it was worth it. How many people walked around as a lobster?
He’d have to be careful with the claws, though. He’d be mighty pissed if they pricked the plastic and burst the lobster. And if that happened, he wouldn’t be able to return it. (He’d learned that trick from his mother, who always returned artificial Christmas trees the next shopping day after Christmas—IF the family was lucky to have a tree, that is.)

 

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Bob stood in the bathroom, examining himself in the mirror. “Mighty fine,” he mumbled, smoothing down a few wayward hairs. “Sexy or what?”

Hmm, he thought. Halloween tomorrow. Should he dress up, scare the neighbourhood kids? Or should he just plan on scaring Jimmy?
He snickered. No, the better idea would be to frighten Elise. Scare her shitless. He scratched his head. What the heck did any of that mean: scare shitless?
The previous day, Elise nattered about needing to go to the ER, but he’d talked her out of it. “It’s just gas, Elise.”
“But I have these huge pains. And my belly is so bloated and hard.”
“Here,” he’d said, “take one of these,” handing her a box of laxatives that just happened to be within grasp.
Yep, that one pill had pretty well done her in. Doubt he could scare her shitless today or tomorrow!
He glanced in the mirror again. Yep, good to go!

 

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The Spot Writers:
Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com
Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com
Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/