I Dream Of Mirrors

by Chris Kelso

  The ugly motherfucker shuffles into view, a man wearing a red t-shirt with Miles Dunwoody’s universally merchandized and objectified image on it. The zombie has these big, pleading eyes that are in stark contrast to what you’d expect from the intellectually, emotionally castrated.

  ‘You…both of you…’ – it mutters and points reprovingly. Kad rises to her feet, bone-saw clutched in her hand like a lumberjack ready to tackle a king Beech. She takes one look at Dunwoody’s face on the t-shirt and charges at the shambling sleepwalker. Her shock of black hair trails in her wake like a superhero’s cape.

  ‘Kad, wait!’ – But it’s too late, she’s on top of the poor moron.

  *SCHUNK!*

  A spray of red pollen fills the air, moans become shrieks of tortured agony. I hear bone branches break, a tearing of the sinew as Kad yanks a limb from its owner and tosses it aside.

  ‘Wait! I just wanted to…’ – the zombie tries to talk but it’ll do no good. Hell hath no scorn like a dark dwellers instinct for survival.

  Kad goes back for more, hacking and tearing at the hard bark, a foaming geyser of arterial fluid sprouts from the delicate stem of a ruptured neck vein.

  ‘No, please! No------’ – the voice trails off. I can virtually smell the adrenaline spiking in Kad’s bloodstream. The king Beech has been conquered. When the squirming ceases, Kad stands up covered in sap. She looks at me.

  ‘How the fuck did it get in here?’

  ‘I don’t know. The hatchway?’ - I walk over to the corpse. He’s wearing espadrilles, a trench coat and has no shirt on underneath. His trousers are torn at the knees and he looks like he may have once been an out of work actor. I lean forward and take in his stink, breathe it deeply into my lungs. Even in death, he reeks of happiness.

  ‘Didn’t you close it behind you?’ – Kad accuses.

  ‘I…’ – suddenly it hits me. I didn’t close the fucking hatch behind me. Guilt swells up in my throat, my remaining fingers are puffy with inflated blood.

  ‘I…don’t think I closed the hatchway…’

  Kad looks upon my confession like a catholic mother who just caught her only son reading some forbidden heretical literature. Light gilds her cheekbones and brow in an ominous fashion. Fuck, here it comes. I’m about to be summarily dismissed.

  ‘Didn’t we set up rules? Were you unclear about your role?’

  ‘No…I just forgot.’

  Kad makes an exasperated sound.

  ‘You know you have to…’

  ‘I know…’

  - I know.

  I can already feel my memory try to eternalise her, grasp at the fading splendour of her face. I hear the metal drawer she keeps her pistol in slide open. A round is chambered, hammer cocked. Kad thumbs the safety and lets me know…not that I don’t already know.

  I pack up my stuff and prepare to leave the Aerial Hotel. My desertion of duty is the worst kind of betrayal. I feel the depth of her pain in the rests of my soul. How could I be so fucking stupid? Devil take the hindmost, as Kad always says.

  ‘I’m sorry. Sincerely, please don’t…that is…fuck…’

  She nods, accepting the apology but damning me with an expression of military coldness.

  ‘You keep the stuff Kad, the poison and the other provisions. I can always loot more.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Single finger discount.’ - I hoist my deformed claw, hoping to provide some levity to proceedings, but she’s having none of it.

  - Good one, asshole.

  I depart shamed and I can hardly blame the girl for exiling me to the Schism. I could’ve gotten us both killed. In a world like this, survival always takes precedence. There is no room for sympathy or second chances. Death is also a pointless option. What lies beyond this place could be ten times worse. Better the devil you know and all that…

  We are the dwellers in the dark. I must outrun the light on my own now. Like in those Russian novels I never read…

  Two -

  ‘The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.’

  - St. Jerome

  I am always giving permanent thumbs up.

  A linocut poster of Miles Dunwoody imposes the cityscape. I look back at the tripod of the gravity defying Aerial Hotel and think of Kad one final time. Of my latest in a long line of fuck ups. Now I’ve been banished, the hotel looks even more romantic – it’s pale blue glow, serene and hypnotic. Such awesome symmetry.

  It was only a matter of time I guess.

  I stick to the shadows cast in the wake of the giant cylindrical towers illuminated by LED lights. Various odours drift in and out of reception – blood, sweat, petrol and axel grease. The night is filled with moaning and indistinct chanting.

  I think it’s a good thing I found Kad, or I wouldn’t be alive today. Not just because she’s handy with a speargun, but she doesn’t think twice about killing another human-being if her life is in danger. I on the other hand, well, I struggle. I haven’t notched up a single fatality since the transmission. It’s the eyes, they seem so full of hope and life, narrowing off in an epicanthic fold. I wonder how long I’ll last. How long can a man with empathy for his hunters last? I imagine not that long.

  A spume of blood lines the streets beneath my feet. The People roam the spiral, glass-covered skywalk above, searching for detractors of Miles Dunwoody.

  - That fucker.

  I worry about being sucked into this shared fantasy. It was easy when I had someone else around to give me perspective, someone strong-minded and resilient – but I’m alone now and, I gotta admit, I’m not all that strong-minded. By my own admission I’m naïve and gullible. What if Dunwoody manages to convince me with another transmission? It stands to reason that if people are intrinsically irrational and stubborn, tired and afraid of living in a hopeless world, then they will follow any old harbinger of hope.

  What if he comes after his cynics personally? After all, if the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain, right?

  You know, the city was once known for its eco-consciousness and ingenious planning. It’s true. In fact, the Dunwoody family pioneered various initiatives to help our environment. They increased vehicle prices and introduced a computer system that carefully analysed cab usage so that emissions could be kept low.

  I think Miles Dunwoody senior would be appalled by his son’s actions if he were alive today.

  Escaping the city is something of a challenging, if not completely unachievable, task. There seems to be no other place in the world. It’s like nowhere else exists. We can see beyond the city limits – just about - but it seems to fade into darkness, even during the daytime. As if the light from Dunwoody’s architecture is the only light in the world somehow. I never wanted to leave though, never even thought about it.

  What did I do before the fall of our great city?

  I think I worked with my hands, maybe an artist. Maybe a mechanic. I manipulated things with my hands, back when I had two of them. It’s almost like…I just can’t really remember….

  Then - I hear people. Mutterings of a conversation. I slide through the shadows and into an alleyway. I see three silhouettes crouching beside a dumpster. They turn to me and there is a pregnant pause, like when feral animals cross paths in the wild.

  ‘Who’s there?’ – One of them asks in a thick street-accent.

  ‘Please, I’m human, a dark dweller, don’t panic.’ – The three silhouettes stand up at the same time and motion towards me like synchronised dancers, swimming through the void. The palms of my feet start sweating.

  ‘Come into the half-light.’ – The same voice instructs. I obey and move deeper into the alleyway. A drowning man will clutch at a fucking straw.

  ‘I’ve been cast out. Cast out of my hiding place. I have no friends, no allies. Please, can I maybe tag along with you guys? I don’t know how long I’ll last out here on my own.’

  - I do. Not long.


  In the gathered half-light of the backstreet I see the illumined faces of two men and a young woman.

  The men are both African-American, panther-esque, too alike not to be brothers. Both are big, burly with equally massive shoulders and matching facial tattoos on their brows – an ancient hieroglyph that I can’t quite place despite the cloud of information at my disposal.

  The woman has the same tattoo on her neck and is small, skinny, seems barely a teenager. She reminds me of a puppy or a kitten. Her black hair flows and disappears into the glooms around her. She glances at the misshapen flesh-hook resting by my right side. It’s okay, I’m not self-conscious.

  ‘We’re conducting a spell.’ – the girl reveals, placing herself in front of the two men, as if protecting them from any potential threat I might pose. I see that the three of them are wearing brass gloves with jagged teeth protruding from the knuckles that extend as far as the cuticle – an ingenious ad hoc weapon to assist individual human survival during these wayward times.

  ‘What kind of spell?’ – I ask.

  ‘It’s too soon to tell you. Do you believe in the Key?’ – She squints at me, trying to figure me out at face value.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The Key of the Nile’ – she points to her neck tattoo and the two men point to theirs.

  - Christ…

  ‘If you’re not part of Dunwoody’s cult then you’re friends of mine.’ – I say this hoping I haven’t just stumbled across another batshit cult. They seem like a shifty bunch, hanging out in the dusks and chanting stupid curses - but then I’m reminded that most people wander this city like famished ghosts these days. It’s hard to tell friend from enemy.

  ‘This is Rat, this is Velm. My name is Ursula. We are healers.’

  ‘Healers of what?’

  ‘Of the plague that befell this city. We are masters of psychic surgery, it’s our mission to alleviate the Dunwoody hex.’

  ‘Future life, life after death! Verse 295.’ – Velm adds somewhat redundantly.

  ‘And it works?’

  Ursula looks at Rat and Velm.

  - Didn’t think so.

  ‘We have to believe it works. Otherwise, there is no hope. If there is no hope, then what’s the point? We might as well join the brainwashed.’

  So, it’s faith they’re after too. What is it with this city? Why does everyone have to get so crazy for divine intervention? And what’s with those brass claws? Surely if they’re so powerful they don’t need weapons? Maybe I’m being too harsh on them, everyone has the right to protect themselves. I think I’m just green-eyed cos I don’t have a pair of those gloves to hide my hook.

  ‘But, can’t we just form a resistance and assassinate the fucker?’

  Ursula snorts.

  ‘No one has seen Dunwoody in person in years. He’s an apparition. The only way to get to him is through ancient spells.’

  ‘I see.’ – She seems to have disavowed the obvious fact that Dunwoody is ominously present even in his absence.

  - These guys are just full of excuses.

  The girl, Ursula, is clearly a runaway caught up in the wrong crowd. The other two? Ex-gangbangers I imagine.

  She reaches through the darkness, I feel her hand on mine. Her flesh is soft and warm in the frozen night and her eyes are rich with desire. She could make a believer of most men. The tenderness of Ursula’s touch tricks me into following her through the shades.

  The hulking presence of Velm and Rat narrow the parameters of the alleyway to a crushed rectangle. They survey me with an innate hostility.

  We crouch to the same spot on the concrete where I first found them. There’s an eye drawn on the ground in blue talc. Ursula traces the eye, drags her brass talon through the powder and makes it weep.

  ‘Imhotep, god of medicine and healing. He is our only figure of worship, and we worship his mind, not his holy powers.’

  ‘Seems fair. So, is there an incantation or something we need to recite?’

  - I can’t believe I just said that…

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to help if I can.’

  Velm appears before me, kneeling, with an intense stare that seems capable of penetrating the shrines of my most private thoughts. I can’t stop looking at his tattoo, at the rusted spikes of his gloves, the gloves that make all three of these kids seem like rabid, unchained animals.

  I need a pair of those damn gloves. This is about survival. I learned that from Kad.

  Velm speaks.

  ‘You can’t help man, ain’t nobody can do this who ain’t been branded, ya see?’

  ‘So, what? You need to prove yourself to get branded?’

  He nods.

  - Fuck off.

  ‘Prove myself? I mean, I thought we were all on the same team here?’

  - Evidently not.

  ‘Nah man, there are a lot of factions in this city, a lot of People sympathisers, a lot of crazy motherfuckers who can’t deal with the end of civilised society.’

  ‘I’m not a fuckin’ sympathiser, I hate Dunwoody and what he’s done. I don’t think I’m crazy either…yet anyway’

  Velm stands up, looms over me, and arches his spine with both sets of talons spread out by his side as if ready to lunge-attack. He snarls and shows his gums and golden crown caps.

  ‘I don’t like this guy, Ursula…he reeks of The People and the beast.’- He condemns with mulish scorn.

  Ursula stands up, places a delicate palm on his hulking chest.

  ‘Velm, we have to give him the chance to prove himself. People can change. We can’t just toss him aside like you did with Fiona, with Ailsa. We’re not about senseless brutality. We’re witches. That’s not how we do business.’

  Rat huffs from somewhere in the dark alleyway, out of view.

  - Jesus…

  ‘I’m with Velm man, I say we ditch the invalid. All we got is each other. We ain’t a coven yet…’

  - Fuckin…

  ‘And the reason we ain’t a coven is because we never give anyone else a chance to join! You think I saw you both and didn’t think twice about…you guys were nothing before I taught you about…’ – Ursula doesn’t finish her sentence. Rat responds from the darkness.

  ‘Hey, you don’t know who we were before this. You don’t know who you were before it either. You coulda been a goddamned…’

  - Christ…

  I interrupt with a hand gesture. I don’t have time for silly kids’ games or their bickering.

  ‘Listen guys, don’t fight, please. I don’t much fancy being branded or having to prove myself anyway. I’ll move along, okay, let you get on with your hocus pocus.’

  I squeeze past Rat, back out into the bloody street carnival. I pick up the stink of epoxy resin from him.

  ‘Wait…’

  Ursula appears. I feel warm, delicate flesh overturn my right hand, facing the palm to the sky.

  ‘If you’re leaving, at least take this…’ – Ursula slides off her right glove and shoves it into my hand. It weighs a ton.

  ‘It’ll give you protection. You’ll need it. It might help you prove a point one day.’

  ‘Thank you. I hope your spell works, really, I hope it works.’

  The city is a cage bursting with roaring, tormented animals. The city is alive with purulent cries. She’s out there somewhere, Kad, deep in that abyssal, serrated outline of the cityscape.

  The man who stole my reflection – face solemn and drawn, eyes like swirling vortexes of misery. He’s a burnt-out shadow of a man and it’s impossible to conceal these facts given the extent of his physical squalor.

  The transmission tower spears the sky. Bodies are flocking towards it and it’s obvious Dunwoody is about to deliver his latest sermon…

  Day - 3

  Month - ?

  Year - ?

  ‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and
therefore not popular.’

  ― C.G. Jung

  This is my first journal entry, my first contribution to the great airborne anthology of names and stories hovering over the city.

  Being a shadow is a funny thing. You flit between the interstices of light all day long and try to project yourself as far as you can, like a shrill squillo over a loud orchestra. It’s a lonely life - I don’t think people appreciate that. I am merely a tracing on the wall, camera obscura.

  Every day, for as long as I can remember, I have watched my light-brother, my sunny overhang, try his damndest to outrun me. Whenever I turn a corner, half expecting to come face to face with the man himself, he shifts into the nearest sunlit street. He does this because he knows I can’t get him there. I’m like a time delay, always three seconds behind actual events. The lobotomised Kurt, who basks in the golden dawn, serene as an eagle, thinks me a coward. We can never be friends, he and I.

  Now, his rejection hurts a lot, it does, but I think I understand it. He sees me and thinks ‘Christ, that’s a lonely, pathetic existence, eh? Loitering in alleyways, running scared all the time…lonely, unloved…no identity to speak of!’ and he’d be right. The bliss found in ignorance, in belonging, is so seductive a prospect that to continually deny it becomes a maddening form of torture. My architect made me this way, made me resolute, made misery a part of who I am.

  My light-brother, who has a full set of fingers on each hand and a happier frame of mind than most, knows if I got half a chance I’d consume him, assume him. I’d fill his heart with darkness and doubt; I’d kill the glimmer in his eye once and for all. I’d do it proudly, efficiently and with a broad smile on my face because the truth is I’m stronger than he is, even though he treads on me daily, hourly. He’s the one who is always running.

  Dazzling flames throw intensely dark shadows.

  I’d make my light-brother remember every shitty thing that’s ever happened to him since we both came stumbling into existence. Tattoo it on his soul so every time he looked in the mirror he’d be reminded of our story. Because I think he forgets.