The Man Who Sold Mirrors
By Craig McGregor
The family shook their heads as her lip quivered up and down, jaw no longer held taut by the grey wall of teeth. Machines beeped. Masks covered the boast of breathing. Aprons and gloves disguised the rise and fall of chests and the warmth of hands. Life, at least life unrestricted, had no place here. Smug sterility reigned. Alcohol strode through the corridors on a pale horse, scything bacteria and viruses and infection.
Jean was on ward 12, in room 21. The message had rippled across the family through towers, phones, fibres, vibrations of calculated breaths in patterns, travelling from person to person, county to county, country to country. Jean’s on ward 12, in room 21. Some answered the message, congregating to ward 12 like drops of rainwater pooling together, becoming family, becoming one once more.
“If anyone wants to say goodbye, they need to do it in the next twenty-four hours.”
Jean’s on ward 12, in room 21.
The raindrops of family that would, could be there sat in that grim sterility. Sentences died in the clean, stale air. Reminiscences shrivelled. Apologies from the absent were met with nods. Jean of room 21 took them in turn, storing them for succour that had, too, been absent in her thinning limbs. Life was traded in the silence, drip by drip, punctuated by saline and the chirp of monitoring machines.
When the pall of silence settled, Jean began to speak.
“The man in the room opposite has a shop.” She said, her jaw quivering, scrabbling to find structure in teeth that weren’t there. “He sells mirrors.”
The family nodded as one.
“Eat this.”
“I’ve emailed your brother.”
“It’s great to see everyone together. Despite. You know.”
“But she had her jab.”
“This strain slipped through the net. We’ve seen it a lot this year. And, unfortunately, we can't rule out that she didn't catch it here.”
“... But she had her jab.”
One by one, they were called away by the obligations and trappings outside of the ward. What was a sea became a lake, became a pond, became a puddle.
Jean could lie down or sit up. Bed or chair. I never saw her in between, never saw those transitions in which the body reacts to pressure, contracts muscles, bears weight, screams life. My grandmother had become static.
“It’s good. There’s a circus of animals under the bed. Giraffes, elephants, a whole show. No acrobats though—they’re on another floor.”
Dutiful looks under the bed revealed pneumatic pistons and cables and wheels and struts. No straw, no shells of discarded peanuts or footprints left in sand by a ringmaster.
“Do you mean when the bed moves?”
“No; there’s a circus. Look. There’s a baby on a tricycle now.”
She watched.
I watched with her.
“While your dad was outside, the man tried to sell me a mirror, but I didn’t want one.”
“Oh right. Wasn’t it good to see the others?” I changed the subject to the same one I have changed it to for days; nothing new can happen here. Nothing breaks the cycle. Nothing is spontaneous.
Jean nodded and smiled that quivering smile. “But I don’t like that doctor. He’s French. And small.”
“Hey, if he makes you better, then that’s fine.” I had used the phrase '“that’s fine” up. It sat, dessicated, at the bottom of a pedal bin in a bright orange bag, covered in our masks and aprons and gloves.
As we waved to leave, she did too, and I saw motion, the glorious motion of tendons and bones and sinews and muscles and Jean, waving all four fingers up and down in a way that had not changed in the twenty six years she had been my grandmother.
That night, she lay listening to calliope music and the trumpets of elephants. Under the bed, breaking through the sterility and alcohol, the smell of hot peanuts and candyfloss drifted up and over the starch covers. Jean smiled that searching, quivering smile and her head bobbed to the sound of children playing and couples laughing.
He wore a suit, pressed and clean and shiny. You could almost see yourself in it. He stood politely by the door and rapped once to announce himself.
“Ma’am, can I interest you in a mirror? There’s no charge, not tonight.”
Jean nodded.
With a flourish, a beautiful hand mirror appeared in his hands. He caressed it, and inlaid pearls sparkled against the dim light.
“I believe this one.” he said, and held it up facing my grandmother.
The calliope music rose as Jean held her head up to see the mirror. The gilt wound around the glass, and framed a face that Jean recognised, finally, as her own. It was young, and her hair outshone the inlay around the mirror. Colour suffused the face with abandon, and there was no quiver at all in the smile. White teeth were the gatekeepers of a breath that was light and carefree.
“Look as long as you like, Ma’am. There’s time.”
Craig McGregor is a 28-year-old primary school teacher from Plymouth, England. His students are his staunchest supporters and, since writing children’s fiction for them, have been telling him to try and publish some “proper stories” already. He holds an MA in Creative Writing and his work has previously been published in several comic books for an independent company. He is fascinated by all things supernatural and dream-like.