For the Unfixable

*actual title is: The Seventh Year

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When strange things occur, some may equate the feat to magic, the works of God or goddesses or gods and their whims and tantrums.

I liked to think I knew better, and maybe I did, but I don't think it mattered much, anyway because the end of the world wouldn't be stopped by some favored God or even the might of the Olympians combined.

The universe is expanding, they say, and it was, further and further and further, but how far must it go before it returns to where it started?

I couldn't tell you, really.

I press my fingers against the glass, but the reflection moves with me, I tilt my head and the other girl follows, I cross my arms just as she does, watching as we both raise our eyebrows.

I don't know why I am so unafraid, but I think that maybe it is because I didn't want to see my own reflection in the first place. I suppose I have gotten exactly what I wanted and I don't know what to do with it.

The problem with getting what you want is that it's a double edged sword; you dream of something over and over again, but when it finally comes you find that there is a new desire already in its place, and the feeling of dreaming is still inside of you, still unfulfilled.

After a while, you come to find that some things cannot be fulfilled.

But there was new desire in me now; I could feel it in the way vicious, insistent curiosity scanned every detail of the mirror hoping to find an answer where there was none.

She moves as I do and I feel akin to her in the way we are in sync; I come to find that after a while, I can't tell which of us makes each movement.

I think that maybe we have put the world on pause.

She breaks an eerie silence and I find myself talking with her, saying the words just as she does so our lips move together.

“The barriers are breaking.”

She holds her hand up to the glass and mine moves with her; she traces a circle, and in the places our fingers touch, a spiderweb of cracks bleed across the glass.

“The barriers are breaking.” We say again, but this time the words come from me, a repetition of her own.

I meet her eyes and we nod at each other in sync. I trace the lines with my fingers and she watches me as I move our hand over the broken places, spreading cracks until we see each other in pieces.

We are distorted now, one eye trapped in a triangle of spreading cracks, another split in slivers of silver that cut our face into new shapes.

I move our hand further and the breaking follows, but still, the glass is hard beneath our touch. Suddenly I need her like I do my own breath, to hold her, to break her free. I claw at the shattered glass with our fingers, pound on it with our fists. The cracking follows me still, but it is too delicate, too soft. We bleed together. We turn the mirror red with our desire and spread the brokenness deep into the glass. I dig our fingers through blood and shatter, reaching for her just as she reaches for me.

“The barriers are breaking.” We say again, and the cracks dig deeper. I meet her gaze again, broken and split with each sliver of glass. I pull the shards from her face and the sharp edges break my skin until I am bleeding again.

I reach for her again, clawing my way through pain and digging into glass stained with our blood.

“The barriers are breaking.”

She reaches for me.

“The barriers are breaking.”

The mirror explodes into shattered pieces.

And the barriers are broken.