Haunted by the Slaughterhouse

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. At first, I thought I must be extremely drowsy from the cough medicine, but then it kept happening even after the cough went away. The mirror was an antique we found in the attic when my spouse and I first bought this house. We had left it up there for the first two years until our bathroom mirror broke. It was random, now that I think about it, as if our mirror just hopped off metal studs in the wall and plummeted to it's death. I had asked Archer if they had a mental breakdown and needed to blow off some steam, but they said they didn't do it. As unbelievable as the mirror falling on it's own was, I knew Archer was telling the truth because they've never been the aggressive type. We brushed the mirror aside and took the antique mirror out from it's cozy nook. Archer and I spent the weekend fixing it up. We did stuff like that often. Both of us grew up in rough homes. When we got married, we promised to create a life of softness together. So we crafted and worked with our hands almost every day together. We keep our life simple and small; it gives us more freedom than any career our parents tried shoving down our throats. My dad was a pig farmer, and Archer's father was the best hunter known in the United States. He even had books written about him, "Jimmy Nelson's Greatest Adventures Outdoors."  What they really meant by "Outdoors" was Jimmy spent hours hiding in places meant for bears, moose, and any large nonhuman animal and shot them and their families. Not the outdoors that Archer and I participate in. And for what? Just to hang another skin on the wall to tell all their friends their losers for not being able to sneak up on animals as well as he can. He can barely look at his own child because they're queer, but he can accept himself when he kills things that don't need killing.  It's pathetic really; and scary. Now to explain my father.  Well, you know how owners start looking their pets? He started resembling the pigs years ago. I spent my life hearing the tortured squeals and screams echoing from the barn. I still need noise at night to fall asleep or all I will hear are those death cries. Needless to say, Archer and I have devoted our lives to being the opposite of what our fathers are. And we have done really well at it. Until we accepted that mirror into our home. 

I bolted out of bed at the sound of Archer screaming. I was half asleep and kept banging into things as I found my way to the bathroom where Archer was. They were scrunched into a ball on the floor, sobbing into their knees. I ran to their side and asked what had happened and if I needed to call the police. With a shaky finger, they managed to point at the mirror and said, 'There, it is right there!' I asked what was right there, and they only continued to sob. I just sat for a moment cradling them in my arms. Sometimes they had bad days, and I wondered if this was just one of those bad days. Two hours later, Archer finally quieted down and fell asleep on the couch. I tried to fall asleep, but I felt too unsettled not knowing what upset them so much. There was a bad feeling in my stomach, like ants marching up my organs and out my throat. This is when I started realizing it wasn't the cough syrup giving me hallucinations. Maybe, just maybe, I really saw a reflection that was not my own. 

After struggling for a few hours to get comfortable in my bed and losing the battle, I decided to investigate the mirror, as I knew that sleep would elude me until I did. I cannot tell you how long I stood at the doorway; I lost count of the minutes after twenty. I remembered the breathing exercise that my old therapist had taught me. She always said to use it in situations where I felt disconnected. I figured that this was one of those situations. The breathing exercise worked, just as it always did when I remembered to use it. I realized how silly it was to be afraid of a mirror. Archer had probably been having a bad day and got into the shrooms or something. I took a deep breath in, and as I exhaled, I walked into the room and turned to my right. I screamed

Not because the reflection was frightening, but I screamed out of shock. Had I eaten the shrooms and forgotten? No, I wouldn't do that on a day like today. I had a golden rule, and that was to NEVER do drugs on the days I felt manic. When I did, it usually ended with a mortifying mental breakdown. Today was one of those days. I knew what my eyes were perceiving was real, but it felt more like a witch's enchantment. I couldn't look away. Instead of seeing my short, wavy brown hair framing my sharp face, I saw two small, dark eyes looking back at me. The owner of those eyes was a plump, pink pig, much like the ones on my father's farm. It was staring right at me, making eye contact. My brain searched for reasons why this was happening, but I kept getting sucked into the mystifying glow that surrounded it. It felt warm and safe. My body leaned in, wanting to morph with the glass. It was calling me.

I couldn't remember the moment it hypnotized me. It happened so quickly that it felt like a splice in a film, where they show you an inappropriate image for barely a second so you don't even notice you saw it. It's a brainwashing technique, and an effective one at that; my eyes didn't blink once. As I stared into the abyss of the pig's eyes, I lost myself. Blood appeared on the pig's legs, slowly dripping down. I startled back to consciousness but still couldn't look away. I watched in horror as the pig's limbs were ripped from its body, blood seeping from the edges of the mirror and filling the sink with a stench I will never un-smell. The squealing was no longer a distant memory but blaring into my ears. It felt as if my skull was cracking from the sheer volume of the screams. I grasped the edge of the sink, which was now running with pig's blood, to hold myself still. I pleaded with my own mind to look away, but my eyes were glued to the mirror. There were blades and men laughing, pigs being poked and shoved with spears. I felt fear coursing through my blood and began to scream. I didn't even know I still had a voice. The screaming shook me from my trance, and I ended up on the floor where Archer had crouched in terror hours before.

I spent a long moment regrouping myself on that bathroom floor that night. It felt surreal to stand up and go to bed after that. I couldn't tell you how I slept that night. The next morning, Archer didn't say much, and I didn't offer up my own experience. We drank coffee until our stomachs hurt, just staring out the window. Our kitchen overlooked a big garden full of vegetables and fruit trees. Behind the garden were the chickens, next to them were the animals we saved from a slaughterhouse. We don't have much property, but what we do have might as well be shared. We have seven hens, five cows, two sheep, two pigs, one rooster, and one llama. My father had hundreds of pigs in his slaughterhouse. Jimmy had triple the number of animals hanging from his walls. Hopefully, in the future, we will get more property and be able to shut down my father's business. My mind shifted back to the images in the mirror. The terror in their faces was still vivid in my memory. How could our fathers do this to living creatures? They murder all day and then fall asleep peacefully in the same 24 hours. While we are losing sleep and being tormented by their misguided lifestyle. I didn't know what last night was, but I was going to pretend it didn't happen. Because what else do people do when they're extremely traumatized?

It was 3 am and Archer wasn't in bed, which was unusual since we were codependent. I got up and noticed that the bathroom light was on. "Archer?" I called out, but they didn't answer. I went inside but the bathroom was empty. I avoided looking into the mirror and shut the light off. I went downstairs to see if Archer was in the kitchen, maybe looking for snacks. I found some of our favorite jam and baguette on the counter but worried about ants, so I put the food away and cleaned up the crumbs. When I stepped outside onto the porch, the cold wind made me wonder if Archer would have left the house on a night like this. They never left without me, anyway. I walked back inside and went to the living room, but still no Archer. As I walked past the stairs to go back to the kitchen, I noticed the bathroom light was on again. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I had seen this horror movie before and wanted to run, but I finally understood why people in those movies made such stupid decisions. I took a deep breath before making a slow and suspicious walk up the stairs. My breath was shaky and I barely called out Archer's name one more time. My knees felt weak, but I was determined not to let them go through this alone. Regret whirled in my stomach as I realized I should have told them what I saw this morning. All the animals outside started making noise, and I jumped. Sweat was trickling down my elbows and I could smell how nervous I was. I kept breathing in and out, reminding myself to stay calm. It was crazy how therapy actually worked.

The mirror was now directly in front of me. I tried to keep my eyes down, but something pulled them upwards. When my eyes reached the full view of the reflection, my blood turned to ice in my veins. There was my father, slaughtered like the pig the night before, limbs apart, shoved in a bucket meant to drain his blood. His eyes were wide open and gray, his mouth frozen in a scream. The bucket was on a conveyor belt that took the deceased animals up to get cleaned and packaged. It started moving, taking my father's body parts with it. Another bucket full of pigs floated past, then another and another. I must have been under the trance for hours, just watching bucket after bucket pass by.

I told myself to breathe, but my anxiety told me I wasn't getting out of this one. So I gave in to the trance, hoping it would loosen its grip if I wasn't struggling against it. Right as my guard went down, another bucket began to pass by. Another set of gray eyes and a wide-open mouth, except this time, it was Archer. I screamed, and everything went black.