Published November, 2015 in
Literary Hatchet, Issue 13
Small publishers help many writers to appear in print, often without turning a profit. Please support this publisher and purchase this volume. Since the first rights have now expired, the story is also printed below.
There was no true inspiration for this piece other than the length some people will go to maintain their appearance. This is a story about a man who truly enjoys his work.
The Middle Box
by DL Shirey
A trick of light. The wafer-thin disk spins, a mirror dangling from a silver chain, reflecting the chocolate-brown iris back into her pretty, pretty eyes. The left one, now the right.
“Concentrate on the color,” I say to the woman, none of that your-eyes-are-heavy or you’re-getting-sleepy nonsense.
The spinning pendant does not make her mind relax, nor the pendulum from one eye to the other. It’s the mirror and the vanity of seeing oneself, even for a brief moment. Appearing for an instant, then spinning away; reflected again, and gone; there, not there.
Her lids flicker and fall, breath evens out. She is asleep at the hands of a perfect stranger.
DL Shirey 