Sagebrush

The only thing left to do is to kill myself. I made this decision while seated here at Meryl’s dressing table, confronting my reflection in the large oval mirror which hangs above it. Many times before I had told my wife that she did not need the jars, powders and creams that were arrayed ceremoniously beneath the glass. She was already beautiful enough. But as I sit here and watch the dull sheen of an unnecessary existence realize itself in my eyes, I see Meryl’s reflection in the glass too. My beautiful Meryl.

She has been dead and in the ground for fourteen months.

It’s this room, you see. This is where she died. It’s just that I don’t think the mirror has realized the fact yet. Every day and night I sit here, and sometimes events from her last few months are soundlessly replayed as a reflection, a year out of date and with no real-life counterpart to respond to in mimicry. It is as if the light in this room travels slowly through the invisible substance of my grief, and is caught for a while only to be released and set free inside the silvered pane.

In the year since Meryl died, I have spent most of it in this bedroom, on this velvet cushioned stool, looking past my own reflected resemblance. I have sat here and watched countless times since her death as she performs her customs that I knew so well. In this mirror I have seen Meryl at her wardrobe, one leg kinked as she fingers through her hanging clothes, Meryl glancing through the curtains in order to match that day’s attire with the climate, and Meryl as she sits on the edge of the bed, sliding her stockings from her legs and wriggling her small, painted toes. I have sat here and watched it all, and wept.

When I first saw this strange vision occurring it was October of last year, and the surge of jubilation almost cleansed me of the depression that had succeeded her death. At first I was confused and fearful of such a phenomenon, but the desire to explain was quickly overcome by the need to simply accept, to have a part of Meryl back in my life, even if only this visual fallacy of remembrance. The visions were not persistent; Meryl’s reflection would appear infrequently, and would not remain lifelike in the glass for any great period of time, but I quickly learned to absorb the displays. I learned to sit in a position in the room so that, in the reflection, she could almost be touching me, interacting with me. Only once, in the very beginning of these occurrences, did I dare to turn around to see if Meryl had truly been returned to me, but she was not in the room. When I looked again at the glass, she had disappeared from there too.

Months passed by, and the house became unkempt and neglected save for the bedroom, which I kept meticulously tidied. I cared more for the condition of the mirror during that year than I did for myself, but I did not perceive the deterioration creeping across my visage. The lines on my face deepened and my eyes became shadowed and bloodshot from the endless hours watching, afraid to blink for fear of missing Meryl’s materialization within the glass. I bathed infrequently, nor changed my garments often. However, my hands and fingers I kept exceedingly clean, for when I reached to touch Meryl’s countenance I wished for no spot of grease or fingerprint to spoil her image. Despite this outwardly unpleasant existence, I remained content, and events continued this way for many months. That was until I saw my dead wife making love to a stranger.

After a day of minimal domestic requirements, I once more retired to the bedroom and settled into my regular seat on the stool. It was a late evening in July, almost ten months after Meryl’s funeral, and I tensely waited for her appearance. She had not appeared in the glass the previous day, and I was anxious. The longest I had ever required to wait for a glimpse of Meryl was almost a week, and during that time I had felt as though a part of me had been killed too. That evening, the hours were measured by the dull clicks of the clock in the hallway downstairs until, with a familiar rippling shimmer like heat-haze, her image materialized before me. I gasped. My beautiful Meryl was naked, her skin a radiant gold as if reflecting warm candlelight, her small rounded figure writhing slowly amongst the sheets.

At that moment, the desire to turn away from the mirror was almost overwhelming. Never before had she appeared so tantalizingly whole, so present. Her long dark hair was arrayed across her face and pillow, and an upraised knee cast an exquisite shadow that demanded to be explored. But Meryl was not alone. An unfamiliar figure, a man, stalked across the bed towards her. His features were also softened by amber shades, and he reached out a slow hand to caress her thigh, sliding higher until engulfed in her silhouetted recesses. For the first time since the mirror allowed me to see, it also allowed me to hear a single moan, as if heard from someone else’s dream. It was Meryl. That sound, that sight before me in the glass invoked an instant of rushing emotion. I was aware of the hurt and anger in my chest, as though my blood had ceased to function normally and was instead rushing to form a single point of heat. In the mirror, the two figures continued to twine, and with a wordless scream I lashed out, casting the mirror from its mount and sending it thudding to the floor. As I twisted to face the bed I saw, for the briefest of moments, Meryl lying face down on the bed with the stranger kneeling behind her. Then the scene was washed away in a ripple of bleary vision, and I was alone again.

The mirror was intact. It had fallen squarely onto the thick bedroom carpet. I replaced it carefully, then spent some time restoring its sheen with the piece of cloth I kept in my pocket. I was afraid that, due to my outburst, future visions would now be denied to me.

My fears were ungrounded. Five days after the fall, the mirror has resumed its show, but instead of random samplings of Meryl’s life in this bedroom, it now projects just one scene, over and over, day after day.

I knew about Meryl’s private love when she was alive.

That day, I had came home unexpectedly and found Meryl, naked, sleeping and contented in the bedroom. A scattering of contraceptive wrappers lay on my bedside table, like the shiny remnants of a chocolate box, and the scent of someone else’s love hung thickly in the air. I shouted, screamed, at Meryl to get up, and she did so. I must have displayed all the malevolence of a madman, for she cried out in alarm and tried to rush past me, to run from the bedroom. I caught her arm and tried to swing her round to face me, but instead she lost her footing. The sound of her neck hitting the round wooden bedpost was like grinding glass fragments in a bag. She died instantly, I think, and under perfectly accidental conditions once I rearranged the room.

It is that scene, her death and my part in it, which the mirror now replays.

I am afraid that someone else will see my mirror, and will know what I have done. I am afraid that, if I break it, my beautiful Meryl’s neck will be broken inside each of the thousands of tiny fragments that remain, and my guilt will be reflected from splinter to shard for all infinity.

That is why I must kill myself.

But not in this room.