13

>

As you can tell, things were going weird for me before I'd even gained the suitcase. But it was only when I was staying with my sister that I realised things were more fucked up than just being my overactive imagination.

I remember being a kid, I was scared stupid by mirrors. Now, back with Jackie in our parent's old house, it was all coming back to me.

"You look seriously fucked," Jackie had said.

"Thanks! You look great too, lost weight and everything."

"Cheek, you know what I mean... What happened to you?"

"Looks like Steph found herself another bloke. Big guy, too. Could have broken me in half with his eyebrows. Nice thing was, she didn't actually tell me. I come home, he's there with their friends, like it's all normal and I'm the fucking weakest link. So I bailed. Just walked. I can't even remember how I got back here. I just feel so tired."

"Well, you know where the spare room is. Your old room. Sleep, sort your head out. You can stay as long as you like."

Walking up the stairs, the old dresser in my parents' room was still in the same place as I remember it. A huge, deep brown, wooden monstrosity, with one of those vast three panel mirrors above it. As you turn the corner at the top of the first flight of stairs, you see yourself face on, climbing to the landing outside the rooms. As a kid, I remember seeing myself in that mirror in the half light of imminent sleep, and being convinced that my face looked wrong, or that the reflection would do something different. In sheer terror, I'd climb the stairs to my room, come to that first corner, and make a giant leap to the opposite wall. I'd climb the last few steps and walk the landing towards that room clinging to the wall so I couldn't be seen by the mirror.

Not so that I couldn't see myself in the mirror, so the mirror wouldn't see me. Like it was some sentient thing, some mass of reflective intelligence, or something sinister. The room beyond, a false and evil reality that would attack or distort.

Climbing those stairs, I was seven years old again. No matter how many years may have passed, the same tingling sweat mounted as I approached my parent's room.

Jackie had these cats. Marv and Martha. M&M as she called them. Two fairly docile black cats. The kind that used to follow each other around and sleep in the same basket. Sitting on that old dresser was one of them. Christ knows which one it was, they're both just black cats, but there was one of them, staring at itself in the mirror.

"C'mon, man... you can do this," I said to myself and mustered up the courage to face my old fears. Taking a deep breath, I went into the room and stepped closer to the dresser and to the mirror. The cat was mesmerised by its own reflection. Its head twitched from side to side, almost trying to see around its mirror image into the backwards room beyond. That was when I noticed the reflection. It wasn't keeping up with the cat in the room, it started to move independently. The reflection cat turned to look at me, and I realised it wasn't a mirror image, it was the other cat. Marv or Martha was within the mirror, its sibling still in our world wondering how to get them back.

Looking closely, I could see the collar of the reflected cat. varM. Martha pawed at the other, the surface of the glass bending slightly as her pad touched it.

I wasn't there. Not in the mirror. It was just the mirrored room. I shoo'd Martha away, brushing her onto the floor, where she skittered away and hid under my parent's old bed. The mirrored Marv stared at me, and mimicked his sister in pawing the glass from the other side. I had to help, and reached for the surface of the mirror. It seemed flexible, soft, almost a pool of gelatin with a thin film on the surface. I forced my hand further, hoping to grab Marv by the scruff to pull him back to where he belongs, but instead the cat was scared, lashing out at me.

The room swam, a wave of nausea.

Falling to the floor again. I seem to spend a lot of my time crawling on the floor. I remember seeing Martha scowling at me under the bed, ears back and hissing. The pain in my hand where mirror-Marv had bitten and swiped at me. The smell of carpet as I crawled to the stairs that lead up to the childish safety of my old room. The strange silver coating on my little finger, throbbing.

It would be possibly the best thing that I'd loose that finger (and the one adjacent) to the lawn trimmer wielding thugs that were hunting Miles.

12

>

Walking into the flat, stepping over the piles of take out cartons and empty (or half empty) pizza boxes, used drinks bottles, cans, crisp packets, empty video cases (where the cassette went I'll never know), old TV guides and losing lottery tickets, I took stock of the life we were leading. Sitting in a flat that was too small for us (me, the three girls, and whatever strange people they'd managed to find and just were hanging around) I thought I needed to get out. But I didn't want to leave without Steph - my shining beacon of hope.

Slumping into the worn couch, I sat next to some guy I'd never met before. His leather jacket squeaked as he turned to look through the mass of hair and beard to nod at me in the unspoken male language of recognition that basically translates as "alright". I nodded back and turned to watch the TV. The unnamed horror sitting with me was watching some action movie with very little plot. The lead character was running through a military camp and had chained the obvious villain's helicopter to the ground.

It was about that time that I realised what I had to do.

Bruce Fucking Willis. Bruce wouldn't take this shit. He wouldn't just sit around waiting for life to happen. He'd run around (with or without shoes), and kick serious butt. He'd take a hold of his life and sort it out. Get of if this slime-pit, grabbing the girl of his dreams, swinging out of the burning window, gun blazing. "Welcome to the party, pal!"

I stood up, went over to Steph, grabbed her by the waist and dragged her out to the car.

"Where are we going?"

"Anywhere... I dunno... forward! Onward! Away from this shit..."

A year later we were married and living in a rented house in the suburbs. Two years later, I was stood in my sister's living room staring at ducks.

11

>

Steph was an angel. She had the most beautiful arrangement I'd ever seen. She lived on the top floor of this block in one of the darker areas of the city, with a couple of her friends, Sam and Angela. Three attractive girls, living in this flat.

The arrangement was, they'd go clubbing on Friday and Saturday nights, looking for an easy mark. Peppermint Park, LA's, Lasers, Roxy, all the common clubs. They'd look for a suitably gullible chap, and they'd all come onto him at once. Just to get him interested, they'd get this schmuck to buy them all drinks, and they'd sit and make out with each other in the club while they sat around the table. Then the drinks would continue, and the schmuck would go home, taking all three of these lovely ladies with them. He'd be on top of the world, thinking this was the best night of his life.

They'd get to his place, strip off to the underwear, jump around a bit, keep the drinks coming, and just when he seemed to be eager for more, the drug would kick in. Next thing he knew, the place had been cleaned out, his cards had been cloned, his phone hacked, his email account hacked.

When the schmuck was me, they didn't realise I didn't drink. Hell, I used to frequent these places just as much as the average trendy-fuckhead. I hung around with Miles and the gang, watching them get completely pissed, getting high on the proximity. Hell, there were times when I felt I was more drunk than any of them, despite being on fruit juices for the night. Sure, I looked a bit sissy, looked like I was drinking cocktails, but hell, I was having a good time. Then the girls saw me, and thought I was an easy mark.

Come to think of it, it was the night Miles and the others were leaving for University, leaving me behind. I was the last I saw of them... that was until Miles showed up out of nowhere with that case. The rest of them, they were drunk as usual, watching and wondering what the hell was going on when these girls started sitting on me. Actually sitting. The drinks flowed, they didn't want to actually shell out for any of them so I kept making the trips to the bar, getting my own drinks. No wonder they were confused when I didn't pass out on cue.

The others got bored when the girls seemed uninterested in them. Miles tried his luck with all of them, saying how great he was, how cool he looked in his new t-shirt, but he didn't seem to fulfill their criteria for an "easy mark". The guys watched me leave, scowling under their breaths while the girls lead me away.

At the flat, they laid in on. Dancing around in their underwear, but even they got tired when I didn't just pass out as expected.

"So now what?" Sam said. She was obviously pissed off by the situation. I thought it was hilarious.

"We could just hit him over the head?" Angela's idea didn't go down too well with Steph. I don't know why, but she seemed to take a shine to me. I snapped out of my drunk mindset pretty quickly with the prospect of being mugged and beaten, but Steph came over and sat next to me on the couch. I'll never forget the way she was wearing men's pants, with Captain America on them, and a matching, faded vest-top.

"You can't do that. Not this one."

"Steffie has a crush!" Sam exclaimed with a hint of mocking in her voice.

"He's just nice," she replied, running her fingers through my hair. I remember grinning like a complete idiot, while my knees shook with a mixture of fear and excitement. That was before it all went wrong. A relationship that starts with a failed mugging is never bound to last.

10

>

I woke on Jackie's floor. In the entrance hall of her house. My legs seemed to seep into the floor, drifting under the skirting board. Couldn't be happening. I was having one of those turns. Must have been. Jackie helped me to my feet, she seemed confused as to what had happened, but I didn't even know how I'd gotten here. She helped me into the living room, and I leaned upon the window, gazing out upon the flood-waters. I knew I'd have to explain what had happened with Steph, but my sister's house would be home for now, while I got my head straight and worked out just what I'd do with my pointless little life. As I stared out at the sun rising over the water, the orange glow reflecting upon the ripples, I looked at the wonders of the world. The beauty. The magic of it all. And I saw a duck. Struggling to keep up with the rest of the ducks, swimming by. This last straggler seemed to be the victim of a fight with a car, its bill bent and broken, healed but deformed, and I knew what I was in the majesty of the world.

A broken duck.

9

>

Walking out of the house, it was already becoming overcast. The storm that threatened to come had muscled in with full force. The rain hadn't started yet, but the clouds seemed to swirl around the sky like miniature tornadoes, swirling around a moon that struggled to be seen. As I walked over the bridge, the dual carriageway was filled with cars, struggling against the wind. An inflatable raft that some holidaymaker had tied up on the river was sailing happily overhead, buffeted in the howling gales. It soared over the trees, rising constantly until I was convinced it would hit the struggling moon.

I didn't know where I'd go, or what I'd do. I'd just walked out of the house, unable to deal with the incomprehensible situation of being simply erased from my past life. I had nowhere to live, and nowhere to go. So I did the first logical thing that came to mind. I needed a cup of tea.

The petrol station was quiet, the queues of traffic were ignoring its facilities as they continued fighting their ways to the roundabout after the bridge toll booths. I headed inside, nodded at the pimply teenager whose hair was, as the management-speak would say, "a barrier between him and the customers." He grunted once, then went back to his magazine. I staggered over to the "tea and coffee making facilities", otherwise known as one of those crap machines that churns out various shades of brown muck, and inserted the necessary coins.

I remember gazing around the place while I waited for the little machine to whirr into life. The plastic cup fell into the loving arms of those little plastic holders, while something rumbled from deep in the bowels of the machine. As it worked, I looked out into the forecourt, staring at the strange man that walking past. His black rubber coat huddled around himself was odd in itself, but his facial features seemed to drift about as if fluid, changing as he struggled against the wind. As he passed, I could see his eyes focus on me, even as he continued... with his back to me, his eyes seemed to move around to the top of his head, looking over and back at me, accusing.

What had I done?

Reaching back to the vending machine, my hands shook, trembling uncontrollably. I couldn't grip the plastic. Just couldn't focus. Falling to the floor. Darkness enveloping.

8

>

I didn't see it coming. Colour me blind.

You get that sense of foreboding that gets under your skin and just seems to itch until you discover what all the hassle is. I didn't know what was coming until I walked into my house. I was greeted by one of my wife's friends, Carol.

"What are you doing here?"

"I live here, what do you expect?"

Carol gave that panicked look around, a bit like a meercat desperate to find an ally or worrying about predators. Carol was a just what you'd expect from a friend of my wife's. Hawk-nosed, chinless busy-body. She breezed out of the living room, hoping to find Stephanie, my wife. Already confused, I followed, only to be greeted by a brickwall of a guy. I'd never met him before, but he seemed huge to me. Shaved head, dark skin, frowning at my merest presence.

"What are you doing here?"

"What, is there an echo in here?" I said.

"Smart guy, huh?"

"Should I ask just who the hell you are?"

"I'm Will, I'm Steph's boyfriend." He offered me his hand.

"I'm Steph's husband," I said, ignoring his offer of friendship, and instead I called Steph's name.

"You mean, she hasn't told you yet?"

"Told me what?"

Will did started to make the same craning gesture, looking around for my soon to be ex-wife.

7

>

"So what happened to you since I saw you..." Miles trailed off, trying to remember just how long it had been since we'd even spoken to each other, "...back in..."

"I can't remember. A lot's happened since then..."

"What about your wife? That blonde bird you shacked up with?"

Steph. I'd tried to forget about her, but there are always some experiences you that keep coming back. The slightest thing reminds you and there's that feeling of warmth... not the good warmth you feel when you think of someone with affection. No, this is the warmth that flows with the tingle under the scalp. The electricity in the head that sets your teeth on edge, making your gums sensitive and agitated as your head warms with the panic. There's that snap in your mind, as you can't stop looking at the horror of it all, as the sound fades and the images take root in your memory. That look on her face when I came home.

Came home, when I shouldn't.