Behind the Glass

By Bart Meehan

I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes I feel her in the room. I can hear her whispering, though I cannot make out the words. They are a hiss — like a last breath leaving the body. 

How long has it been? Weeks? Months? I don’t know anymore. Time has stopped in this house.  

I know I should leave but every time I try something holds me back. No, not something. 

Her! 

Day after day, I walk through the house, stopping at the windows and looking out. 

It is always winter outside. There is no sunlight. The garden is dying. There are weeds growing in the cracks of the path that leads down to the gate. Past that there is a road that no one ever uses. 

The living world has disappeared.

The first time I saw her was in the hall mirror. I passed and caught her reflection in the corner of my eye. But when I turned, she was gone. 

A trick of the light, I thought.

Then later I was combing my hair in the bathroom and as the steam on the mirror cleared, I saw a face staring back at me. I screamed and dropped the brush. But again, in a moment she was gone.

In the days that have followed there have been fleeting glimpses. So many that I have formed a picture of her. An old woman. Her face so shrivelled by the years that it is barely human anymore. She sits behind the glass her eyes fixed on my every movement. 

Yesterday I covered all the mirrors with blankets but I still feel her there. Waiting for me. 

I cannot stand it any longer. I must be rid of her! 

I will take off the blankets and smash the mirrors. Then I will bury the shards in the garden and leave. … Leave this house, the whispering, the memory of her behind me.  I will find a new life. 

DO YOU HEAR ME OLD WOMAN? DO YOU HEAR? 

There!  I told you I wasn’t senile. There is a young woman in the mirror. She is trapped behind the glass. 

…And she is screaming at me but all I hear is a whisper, that sounds like a dying breath. 

About the Author

 Bart Meehan is a Canberra writer who has published a number of short stories in publications such as Hello Horror, Aurealis and AntiSF.

He has also had a number of radio plays produced for national community radio — now available as podcasts at <https://podcast11793.podomatic.com/> as well as stage plays performed in Canberra and Sydney Short and Sweet Festivals.

Bart recently published a novella called The Parting Glass, about the experiences of 5 men and women during World War 1.