Disclaimer: I refuse to contribute to redundancy....look at the word. It's fairly self-explanatory.
Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.
~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you."
~Maori Proverb
Refract
Sometimes when Craig looked in the mirror, he wasn't there.
At least, not as he is today.
In his reflection, bruises once more paint his flesh. Everything hurts. His eyes gaze empty, soulless, and those words reverberate in his ears. Those must-know lessons he'd based his entire existence on for what felt like so long. It had been so fucking long.
The Craig staring in, eyes wide, breath catching, is mostly unmarred. He is healthy and strong, his hair is even, his eyes live. His skin is pale as ever, yet with just the barest hints of sunlight glowing in collective pockets, hardly conspicuous, but extraordinarily there when compared to his reflection. Craig doesn't know if this is good. He thinks it is, but he's been wrong before. Maybe its not.
The sun's rays glance off the mirror, sending a flash of pure, unadulterated light searing through his corneas, sealing itself somewhere in his brain, melting it slowly from within. He doesn't look away, and dimly wonders if he can really keep that light inside him. He thinks sometimes he really needs it.
Craig stares until the flash fades away, dies and falls to the ground like the once vivacious deciduous leaves in winter. Craig feels like a leaf a lot of the time, and the sensation is tickling him now as he blows lightly in the wind. Craig brushes a lone finger up the length of a forearm, eyes still fixed, fathomless, on the glass's surface. The finger leaves a searing trail in its wake, and Craig can feel the caustic pang of fresh cigarette burns where in reality there are only small, pink, puckered spots, fading into the relentless surge of aging scars and sinewy muscle. A tendon parts the sea of scars, jumping out defiantly, as if daring the world to look elsewhere. Craig's thumb passes along its truculent ridge, standing stark, persona flashing.
The sun is setting, dancing down below the line of trees, swimming brilliantly across the sky, cutting it into pieces. Another strand of ultraviolet shifts furtively into the room, casting shadows over his face. For a moment, he and his reflection are once more the same, and everything aligns. Craig feels a shot of pure rage enter his bloodstream, careening through him. Everything blurs, and he lunges forward, grappling at the last frayed edges of clarity.
Then, he is falling, falling fast, and his reflection is falling with him. Together, they hit the ground. Together, they break apart into a million and one pieces.
Craig's uncut skin tears under the impact of his reflection. He thinks for a space of time, a second perhaps, or two, that he sees his father. The wounds are real and perpetuate the delusion with disturbing force. He forgets for a moment and believes it. This is his father's final revenge.
Sunlight refracts off the shattered glass, and then it's just Craig and he's bleeding, and for the first time in so long his body looks like it did then, feels like…But it's not. He can feel his blood pumping, his hardened muscles tensing. He is stronger and there is life in his eyes. Craig's eye catches a fragment of glass, but the shadows shrouding his reflection's sockets have been evanesced.
As the Sun winks one last time, then retreats, and Angie's giggles echo from downstairs, Craig becomes one. He looks into the glass and smiles, the triumphant, watery grin of a war-torn soldier who has seen much but survived, and notices one last thing before he heads to get Joey's help, a first-aid kit, and a hug. His reflection is finally a match.