Phyllis Mathis is a writer, a psychotherapist, and a life coach, living and working in Littleton, CO. Her novel is entitled Cold Counsel. Check out her website: Resonance: your life, in tune.
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Mirrors and Windows
“Just write something, anything,” she coaxed herself as she stared at the blank page. Denise looked out the window, waiting for inspiration.
Denise was forever looking out of windows, ever since childhood. Kneeling on the cushions, leaning her elbows on the sofa back, she gazed out the window of the little house on Hanover Street. Always out the window, as if something marvelous was headed her way, and all she had to do was catch it as it passed.
For one short springtime, Bobby was that marvelous something. Denise smiled, remembering the innocence of that eighth grade crush: Bobby, heading out the front door, pretending to check something in the back of the pickup; Denise, sentry of the picture window across the way, passing the time on a Sunday afternoon. As soon as Bobby appeared out-of-doors, Denise would find a reason to put on her coat and join him in the street.
They talked for hours. Rather, Bobby talked for hours while she listened, tirelessly holding him with her presence, her laugh, her shy glances. Aside from Denise, no one in Bobby’s world listened to him. If they had, he’d have turned out okay; as it was, they lost him, setting him adrift until he finally lost himself. Even Denise lost him eventually, despite heavy doses of her listening balm.
She listened for herself, of course, offering to him what she herself still craved. She listened, and laughed, and listened some more, hoping for a turn to explore her soul aloud, but he couldn’t spare it, couldn’t offer her the space. His soul was hungry for what she gave, but too malnourished to return the favor. He didn’t know the rules.
She had hoped he would love her, cling to her in grateful desperation, but she didn’t know he couldn’t bear it. She was the mirror he longed for elsewhere. He’d hoped by gazing he could find some value, something to carry him to the next place, but he didn’t find it, couldn’t see it. He couldn’t love her then. She’d become a witness to his empty soul, and he had to look away.
Denise sat at the page, feeling an old sadness, recounting the Bobbies she had collected through the years. Chuck and Marty, Barry, and finally James, so many empty souls, drawn to the mirror like thirsty wanderers, breaking the rules and walking away, without so much as a thank you kindly.
Once had come Robert, and she had fallen hard. He was someone who, for some unknown reason, was willing to hold the mirror she craved. He reflected something golden; saw it clear as day. She thought he was magic, able to conjure by slight of hand, some brilliant image of her longed-for self. Her untrained eyes failed to see, and so she turned to him in desperation, looking for her brilliant self in the depth of his clear blue eyes. Ignorant, she wanted him. Needed him. If he wasn’t there, she couldn’t see, couldn’t hold her own mirror; she lost the hope of keeping herself alive. She couldn’t bear it when he wouldn’t stay.
Wiser now, Denise peered from a different window, waiting for something true to break into the light. At last, holding her own mirror, she knew that today, as every day, she would reflect her golden self right here on the page.
Something marvelous was headed her way, straight from the depths of her own bright soul. Time and an open window were all she needed.
story by Phyllis Mathis, all rights reserved
Short Stories 