The Monster in the Deep
By LaDonna Cole
Lacy stood, staring into the vanity mirror, lipstick suspended between her chin and her mouth. Staring deeply into the reflection, she felt at odds with the familiar stranger. She hated her for what she was inside, dark, monstrous, deceitful. She loved her because she must, right?
As though she were trapped in a Celtic maze, set apart from time and space, Lacy bored into the soul of the reflection. She avoided mirrors usually, because they always accused her with those haunting eyes, deep sadness pooled there. A black lake filled with poisonous eels, ravenous sharks, and tentacles of torturous thought spilled out to suck her into the doom infested waters.
She was snared in them now. Icy shards of conversation memories stabbed into her heart. Words that were spoken into her without malice, but gouging chunks out of her soul, the sharps stones ricocheted around in her endlessly-- creating, reshaping who she was and who she would ever become. Those thoughts weren’t even the monsters, as frightening and cutting as they were.
The monster was Lacy.
She knew it deep inside where tentacles stroked her thoughts and fangs bared her soul. She was a hateful being, there was no redeeming quality in her. When people lightly threw around the phrase, “be yourself”, she withdrew into a darker place. She knew she could never do that. If people only knew the blighted soul that lived inside her frail frame and smiling face, they would run away screaming.
The red of the lipstick reminded her of the violent hatred that was submerged beneath the glassy surface. She drew a shuddering breath and blinked, breaking the hold of the mirror. She glanced down at the light green tube in front of her and carefully raised it to her lips without making eye contact with the beast. Smoothing the blood red balm across her lips, she stared at the puckered pout, then rubbed them together and smacked, resisting the tide pull above them.
Her day called to her. “Come and play, Lacy.” She snapped off the light switch and walked away from the reflecting pool. She was done with her deep sea diving for the day. The introspective entanglement would wait until tomorrow. Today, she had other mud puddles to wade through, puddles that were shallow and less menacing.
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