"Reflection" -Experiment in thoughtPhotographs, pictures, snapshots, (call ‘em what’cha will)… At first one is likely to see the obvious. The image here clearly illustrates a man, not particularly handsome, balding, skin slowly leathering as years become decades… Just a man wearing a blue robe, soft and fuzzy like terrycloth but the loops of fabric threaded with just a hair more density… Soft and fluffy to the touch. It looks warm. We assume it’s early in the day; perhaps late Autumn or even Winter for a man to adorn such a garment. In the foreground -all but dominating the picture’s entirety- rests a decorative box, fashioned of clay, colored and sculptured there upon a representation of the “green man” (the recombinant offspring of several “earthy” deities from a number of now-faded mythologies). In the background… What’s that, a thimble collection? Lacey Curtains? Evidently he’s a fag of sorts… Or, perhaps eccentric/nostalgic… Perhaps sentimental, the collection may be a remembrance of some now dead ancestor… Perhaps.
Despite that which we’ve taken notice of thus far, we fail to mention the true subject of this image. For, I assure you, the topic of interest herein is invisible until disclosed, and even then likely to be opaque at best to some. Our topic is the mirror; more specifically, thoughts that arise from it and -at times- the machinations I puzzle upon when considering it’s origin. My Aunt, still young in spirit, although chronologically affected as |
we all are, now acclimates herself more and more everyday with the role of “Family Matriarch”. With such station there comes the obligation of history, information, and (in my opinion, of greatest importance) the relay and installation of such information into those destine to someday become it’s only hosts. … This Aunt of mine, riding the crest of her timeline like a surfer rides the wave… On the cusp of entering retirement, she has often spoke of this mirror and how it came to be in our family’s possession.
She’d been a young girl, teenager at the time, in a small town, a town that even today can merely boast a population of approximately 6800. The town was quaint, amicable on the surface. It even gained subtle notoriety as being the actual model for author Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio” (ca. 1919). It was the sort of town where very seldom did the macabre escape the confines of the homes wherein it flourished. People knew each other; knew one another’s business, but much of the unsavory gossip had been better left to small circles of whispering church women and huddles of fedora-topped men smoking robust, saliva-soaked cigars. And, so it was with the story of this mirror…
The very words “Axe” and “Murder”, in and of themselves, provoke an eerie sort of stimulation but when conjoined adjacent to one another in sentence form or title, they carry a heavy tone indeed. The axe, around -one way or another- for millennia, a simple concept, a wedge of stone, copper, bronze, iron (depending on the era) affixed to a handle… Altogether, a device with intent to split material asunder. Personally, I think of trees when I think of an axe. Others, may think of The Shinning (Steven King, 1977). |
Regardless…
The story of our mirror, it’s frame now glossy black in lieu of it’s original tones of ivory and meadow gold, is more than one of simple silver and glass. It’s the story of a teenage girl rummaging through the household items for purchase at one very small town estate sale. The sale a subsequent event of the estate’s liquidation following the demise of it owners. We, Americans, have our legends of tragedy and woe; we nurture our favorites, the precedent-setting, memorable tragedies… We even fancy the axe stories and hold them in a special place their own… Lizzie Borden and her Hoodoo hatchet… The Villisca Murders of 1912... Betty Gore, having taken her whacks, had Texan jurors all astir. And, still… These examples are but sprinkles amidst a Niagara of homicidal lumberjacks. So many cases drift quietly, without sensationalism, into the halls of public record; and, therein, become ghosts remembered only by those close enough and lucid enough to recall the tale. So it is with this case wherein an average, working class man took it upon himself one day, some 50 years ago, to seize tightly the neck of an ordinary tool and make work of those closest to him (and any/all thereafter) until meeting his finality at the hands of authority. (I even recall a dog caught up in the act somehow… Bits of fur; chunks of dog flesh accompanying those gathered at the scene)…
The story of our mirror, it’s frame now glossy black in lieu of it’s original tones of ivory and meadow gold, is more than one of simple silver and glass. It’s the story of a teenage girl rummaging through the household items for purchase at one very small town estate sale. The sale a subsequent event of the estate’s liquidation following the demise of it owners. We, Americans, have our legends of tragedy and woe; we nurture our favorites, the precedent-setting, memorable tragedies… We even fancy the axe stories and hold them in a special place their own… Lizzie Borden and her Hoodoo hatchet… The Villisca Murders of 1912... Betty Gore, having taken her whacks, had Texan jurors all astir. And, still… These examples are but sprinkles amidst a Niagara of homicidal lumberjacks. So many cases drift quietly, without sensationalism, into the halls of public record; and, therein, become ghosts remembered only by those close enough and lucid enough to recall the tale. So it is with this case wherein an average, working class man took it upon himself one day, some 50 years ago, to seize tightly the neck of an ordinary tool and make work of those closest to him (and any/all thereafter) until meeting his finality at the hands of authority. (I even recall a dog caught up in the act somehow… Bits of fur; chunks of dog flesh accompanying those gathered at the scene)…
It’s not the axe that so interests me, even if the actual murder weapon were available I’d find it’s allure pale in comparison to what I’ve actually inherited. This mirror… Little more than a thin foiling of silver atop cardboard, framed in glass… I remember it a part of my childhood home… It always hung in the hallway where the stairs descending our second story met the first. We wedged family photos around it’s edges. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times I awkwardly checked my reflection there on my way out to school…
Time, whether kept track of or not, never slows… It’s speed of passing only seems to deviate contingent to our perception of it. Now, the man in this mirror is a stranger to the boy noticing every flaw in his hair, every blemish/pimple developing upon his adolescent face. The reflection in this mirror now thinks of other things… And when he takes time to review his life and the origin of his current surroundings he sometimes thinks of that mirror and wonders… How often had that ordinary, working class, short-practicing axe-murderer… How often did he stop and checked himself in that very glass? How often had he held conversations with himself therein? And… Was it there, in that very combination of glass, reflected light, and color that he decided to no longer remain complacent… Allowing fuel to contact the sparks of discontent arcing within his frustration. I wonder... |