Fungal Halo

Every morning your reflection pains you, reminds you of what you desperately wish you didn't look like. Something to sour the mood at the start of each day. Shaving helps only a little. Makeup helps a little more. But the mirror haunts you.

When is a mirror not a mirror? Perhaps when it has been carved into and reshaped and repurposed into a well from which unreality may be drawn.

Is a doll still a doll when its emptiness is all that is put to use, filling it like a bucket from the well and drawing it back?

The mask's smooth curves, its flat colors, its simple lines, all have so much appeal on their own. No effort made to imitate a living person, all simple iconography—with some decorative flourishes—in crisp, clean lines.

You press it to your face, and it's seamless.

I've come to hate the girl in the mirror. She barely manages to make eye contact with me any more, like she's ashamed of me or something. She doesn't even spend time admiring the new bruises on my face and neck or appear disappointed when they fade. Pathetic. Downright rude.

Why me? Of all the people at that party, why am I the one you drugged and dragged out and brought to that dingy basement of yours?

Why does it have to be me you tied up and left in an empty room with only a bare bulb and a mirror in front of me for company?

Why any of this?

Nobody summons me on purpose.

I live in the accidental spaces between correct rituals.

My forms are as different as there are ways for a mirror unlocking to go awry.

So why did such an experienced one as you seem so sure of yourself, drawing those lines on mirrored glass?

It's a strange party you find yourself in the middle of. You had no idea your friends knew so many different creatures from every plane you've heard of—and a few you haven't.

You don't see anyone you recognize right now, but everyone is chill, and you lower your guard.

I accidentally summoned the ghost of a dead empress who lives in my head and makes me dress slutty, and I think I like it?!

She's so fucking infuriatingly vain, isn't she? Whatever the topic, whatever the context, she thinks everything is about her. And if you try to make it about anyone else? She'll find a way to twist it right back around to herself.

You can't stand her.

The way it usually goes is this: you take your vitamins, you draw the door on glass, you speak your goodbyes, and then you slip through to the other side.

Then your life is hers to play with for a while, and oh, how her pleasure makes you smile!