River of Ink Part 7

Hurriedly, I dressed in my best black dress and wriggled into some tiny stockings. Looking around the apartment, I couldn’t help but feel there was something missing; something seemed to make this place not my own. When I looked in the mirror with my now curled hair, I could not help but have the same distinct feeling – the feeling that something which the mirror reflected was in some way untrue or as if something was being concealed. I didn’t know what was untrue or what is was concealing what ever it was concealing from, but still. Something seemed false hearted in the image the mirror projected to me. But I was sure that in that moment, the mirror reflected everything I ever wanted to have or to hold; the apartment; beauty; hope. Yes. This was a hopeful mirror.

In my stilettos, I flounced out of the apartment and down the sweeping marble staircase. I couldn’t help but be in total awe of my new world. It seemed free, glamourous, loud and totally perplexing. London was a vain city; full of all sorts of falsehood and pretention with a vein of water running through its heart – a stream of blood within flesh – a river of ink, the kind you get when you push too hard with a fountain pen on good thick paper.

I arrived on the street below like a film star arriving on the red carpet, like a moth is drawn to a flame. The street did not fail to alarm me. Packed tight with celebrated, interesting, beautiful people who themselves thronged about like moths are drawn to a flame. They were all dressed perfectly. And then there was me. Standing undeservingly in a Hollywood street staring blankly ahead. From the window above, it must have looked as if I was waiting for something, but I’m not sure what that something was or what that something appeared to be.

Boarding the underground, I noticed for the first time the rush of the air as the train arrived. The still, dry air from the hot summer night was suddenly billowed aside, replaced by cool air from the blackness of the tunnel. It was a wind in a world full of still things. It blew the leaves on the leafless trees. The train whisked me off to Canary Wharf.

I stared out of the train window as it sped through the tunnels. Blankly, for my intention was not the view the mas of blackness beyond the glass, but to view myself as a reflection. I placed my right hand on the glass and so did she, then, the left. Again, she matched exactly. It was if she knew what I wanted to do before I did it. I touched my hair. So did she. But still, she was not me. She was far more beautiful than I would ever be. A soft smile, she copied. Maybe I was copying her, maybe I was the reflection of her. A weak, poor mocking imitation of a beautiful girl in the darkness. The train came to an abrupt halt. I turned away from the girl in the glass, not that she was there to see me.

Wondering through the station, I found myself in the middle of a shopping centre. High end fashion chains and disturbingly impressive skinny young girls clad in long summer raincoats that seemed to billow from some imaginary breeze that only existed in the minds of disturbingly impressive skinny people. A great chandelier cascaded down from the centre of the ceiling in pure silver down through the void between the circle of escalators that travelled higher and higher until they were almost out of my view. Hurriedly, I found the exit to the street.

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