Short Story: Reflection

'Reflection' is a short story I submitted to a writing competition last year. The theme of the competition was 'identity'. This story is very loosely inspired by actress Charlotte Kirk speaking out about how the media exposed her against her will and misrepresented her actions supposedly in support of the #MeToo scandals.

(Apologies for the strange formatting. Blogger does not allow line spacing to be changed for individual posts, so some improvisation was required.)

REFLECTION

by Xander Markham 

A lake of blood spread across the bedroom floor from the gunshot wound in the woman's heart. The tips of her platinum hair turned pink as they skimmed the rising tide. A final breath escaped her blood-stained mouth, rippling across her reflection in the scarlet pool as her eyes emptied of life.

---

'Nice dress,' said Detective Sergeant Clarence Pulmo. He slipped a pen beneath the shoulder strap for a better look in the moonlight. 'Hey, Cooper, know who this designer is?'
 

'You think because I'm a woman I know who designed every dress?' Detective Phyllis Cooper said.
 

'Do you?'
 

'Looks like a Gucci,' Cooper said. 'Why do you care?'
 

'I'm taking my wife to the opera for her birthday next month,' Pulmo said. 'She's gonna need a dress.'
 

'You think she'd appreciate you giving her a dress you found on a dead woman?'
 

'I'm not giving her this dress. Another black dress which looks like it.'
 

'You're really weird. Also, it's dark green.'
 

'Give me a break. It's black.'
 

'It's green.'
 

Pulmo looked at her inquisitively.
 

She shrugged. 'I paint in my spare time. Gives me a good eye for colour.'
 

'No kidding,' Pulmo said. 'Do we know who she is?'
  

Cooper pulled a notepad from her pocket. 'Owner says she gave her name as Daisy.'
 

'That'll be fake,' Pulmo said. 'You see this?'
 

He shone his torch on a handbag under the bed. He snapped on latex gloves and reached inside, removing a DVD.
 

'Showreel,' he said, reading the writing on the disc's surface. 'Guess she was an actress.'
 

Persisting with his search, he pulled out a plastic pouch containing a crushed flower. He held it to the moonlight for a better look. A daisy.
 

'Anything important?' Cooper said.
 

'Just where she got her name.'
 

He continued rummaging through the bag before finding a glass crackpipe.
 

'We have a winner,' he said. 'I'd say she was meeting her dealer, things got heated and he shot her.'
 

Cooper shone her torch at the window. 'It's unlocked. Killer probably got away down the fire escape.'
 

Pulmo dropped the pipe into an evidence bag. 'No ID in the handbag. Check around for her phone.'
 

Cooper scanned her torch around the room, settling on a black rectangle beneath the bedside table.
 

'Got it,' Cooper said. She turned it on. The woman on the screen was dark-haired, but the same person as the victim. Cooper attempted to unlock the phone without success before bagging it.
 

'Hot in here,' she said.
 

'The power outage knocked out the AC as well as the lights.'
 

'Seems weird. The power out on this block only, just as this lady gets killed.'
 

'You getting at something?'
 

'Owner said he didn't see anyone come up. He's the only member of staff working tonight. Maybe he went to check the fuses when the power died and the killer sneaked past. But why go to the trouble?'
 

Cooper's phone buzzed.
 

'Forensics are coming up,' she said.
 

'Not much more we can do,' Pulmo said. 'My guess is the pieces will fall into place when we know who this lady is.'

---

'Tell me who you are.'
 

His hands released the woman's hips and he stepped back from where she was bent over the side of the bed. 'Your real name.'
 

'Names don't matter,' she said, releasing her grip on the bedsheets. 'What matters is who we are to each other.'
 

'How can I help you if you won't be truthful with me?'
 

She pulled herself onto the bed and lit a cigarette.
 

'My body is the truth,' she said. 'Isn't that enough?' She exhaled the words in a wisp of smoke through the moonlight.
 

The man's naked body landed on top of hers. She laughed, feeling a small bite at the base of her neck. 

'Careful,' she said, playfully smacking him away. 'No marks.'
 

'I could eat you alive.'
 

'That's extra,' she said. 'A lead role at least.'
 

He laughed and stood back up, patting her raw behind and causing her to flinch. He stretched, collected his clothes from the floor and began dressing.
 

'Mind if I turn on the lights?'
 

'Not yet,' she said. 'When will I see you again?' 
 

'Could be a while until my wife's out of town,' he said. 'Couple o' weeks, maybe.'
 

'That's too long,' she said, sliding onto her elbows. 'What's this pussy gonna do for fun while daddy's gone?'
 

'I'm sure it'll get enough attention,' he said.
 

'Don't be like that,' she said. 'The fantasy's real if you keep it that way. To you, our nights together are the only nights I exist. I live just for you, darling.'
 

'After four years,' he said, 'Maybe I want more than a fantasy. Maybe I want a real person. Not another ambitious actress with a fake name.'
 

'The fantasy is all there is, darling,' she said, rising to her feet. 'If reality was so good, you'd stay home.'
 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. She removed the handkerchief from his lapel pocket, wiped the lipstick from his lips, then folded it, stained red, back into his pocket.
 

'Every time you go out with your wife,' she said, 'Keep that in your pocket. Then I'm with you forever.'
 

'God, I love you,' he said.'Whoever you are.'
 

'If you find out, I hope you'll come tell me,' she said, stubbing out her cigarette. She slid into a cream dressing gown, tying it high enough that a glimpse of her pubic hair was visible through the slit. 'I'll be waiting.'
 

The man's phone buzzed.
 

'My car's here,' he said. He kissed her before making for the door. 'Until next time.'

---

The little girl, arms outstretched, ran across the dirt drive to where the pastor was waiting on the steps of his white wooden church. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist as they collided. He smiled, stroked her dark hair, and waved to her mother and father following in her wake.
 

Her father, dressed primly in a mustard-coloured suit, pulled his daughter away. His hand clipped her ear on its way to shaking the pastor's hand. The pastor greeted the girl's mother, then led them to a picnic in the verdant garden behind the church where several families were laying out food.
 

The little girl sat down on the manicured lawn and plucked a daisy from the grass. Before she could place it in her hair, her father pulled her up, wiped the dirt off her cream dress and admonished her.
 

A chubby boy in a chequered summer shirt ran over and beckoned her to join his friends' game. She looked up at her father, who sighed and shooed her away. She scanned around her feet for the daisy, but with no sign of it, went to join the other children.
 

One of the boys pointed to an old tree in the wheat field opposite the church. The children ran for the garden gate. The girl looked back at her parents. Her father was lighting his pipe as her mother was escorted inside the church by the pastor.
 

The girl felt a tap on her shoulder. The chubby boy waved for her to follow him. She looked down at her dirt-freckled dress, shrugged and set off in pursuit.
 

The other children were climbing and dancing around the tree. The chubby boy hurled himself against the bark and scrambled up to the lowest branch.
 

One of the girls stopped playing as she noticed the girl not joining in. The girl sighed and pulled up the corners of her skirt, showing the dirty hem. The other girl thought for a moment, then gathered the children and began a round of eeny-meeny-miney-moe. Her finger finished on the chubby boy, who cheered, faced the tree and began counting. The children spread out in different directions into the wheat field.
 

The girl hesitated, then ran back down the path towards the church.
 

With the adults preoccupied, she dashed unnoticed up the church stairs and heaved open the doors.

She wandered up the aisle, looking for somewhere to hide. Approaching the altar, she heard a strange noise from a closed door behind the vestibule.
 

She tiptoed over, swallowed her uncertainty and inched it open.
 

Through the crack she saw her mother and the pastor with their lips locked in an aggressive kiss. The pastor's hands ran down her mother's body, under her skirt and tugging down her pants. Her hands stripped away his belt and pulled down his trousers. He bent her over the table in the middle of the room, leant over her and kissed the back of her neck.
 

The pastor thrust between her legs. Her mother moaned and spasmed with pleasure, her fingertips gripping the tablecloth.
 

The girl watched, transfixed and confused. The pastor snatched her mother's long blonde hair and pulled it back, increasing the speed of his thrusts.
 

'Ah! Ah! Oh, God! Ah! Ah!'
 

As the moans became louder and her mother was gripped in rapturous throes, the pastor's gaze turned to the door. The girl froze. They looked into each other's eyes, his hand still tugging her mother's hair. He gave the girl a small smile and turned back.
 

The girl suffocated a terrified gasp. She closed the door and ran out of the church into the cover of the wheat field, forcing herself through the yellow strands as fast as she could, trying to make sense of what she had witnessed.
 

A small body burst through the yellow curtain and they crashed on top of each other.
 

She shook the mess out of her hair and found herself staring down at the chubby boy's startled face.
 

He shuffled in discomfort. She slid off him so they were sitting face to face. He blushed and reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a squashed daisy and placed it in the palm of her hand. She looked at it, stunned, then back at him. She pocketed the daisy, put her hand on the side of his head and pulled him into a deep kiss.

---

She pursed her lips and checked her scarlet lipstick in her compact. She snapped it shut and slid it into the backpack at her feet.
 

She glanced up at the screen showing bus departure times. Her body yearned for a cigarette, forbidden by signs on every wall. She lay back into the uncomfortable metal chair, trying to find anything worth looking at in the concrete monstrosity of a bus terminal.
 

An elderly man dressed all in black sat beside her.
 

'Excuse me, ma'am,' he said. 'Have you accepted the word of Christ into your life?'
 

She sneered. 'Not interested.'
 

'I understand,' the man said. 'If you don't mind my asking, where is a young lady like you heading on a cold winter's morning?'
 

'Not interested.'
 

'I'm sorry if I offended you, ma'am,' he said. 'I have a long wait and was hoping for someone to talk to. I'll leave you in peace.'
 

He gave a bow and walked away. She watched him go before noticing a strip of laminated paper on his seat.
 

'Hey!' she called. 'You forgot your ticket!'
 

'Thank you, ma'am,' the man said, returning to collect it. 'You're most kind.'
 

'You're going to Kansas?' she said, noticing his destination on the ticket.
 

'Yes, ma'am.'
 

'I'm from there. Walton.'
 

'Is that where you're going? To see family?'
 

She smirked. 'I've spent most of my life trying to get as far away from there as possible.'
 

'A shame,' the man said. 'May I ask where you are headed?'
 

'Los Angeles.'
 

'The California sun.'
 

'The stars, hopefully,' she said. 'I got an audition. Nothing big, but we all gotta start somewhere.'
  

'That we do,' the man said. 'It takes courage to follow your dreams.'
 

'And yours lead you to Kansas?'
 

'My faith,' the man said. He held up a bible and smiled. 'Though perhaps dreams and faith can be one and the same.'
 

'Guess our dreams are taking us in opposite directions.'
 

'If it's not intruding, ma'am,' he said. 'What is it that makes you disavow the teachings of Christ?'
 

She hesitated. 'I guess I don't like the idea of my life being dictated by an old book.'
 

'I understand,' he said. 'When I was your age, my feelings were not so different.'
 

'What happened?'
 

The man sighed. 'Something bad,' he said. 'Pain makes us see life a little differently. So here I am, waiting for redemption. Maybe helping others find theirs, too. This book helped me find myself.'
  

'A book written by someone else, centuries ago?'
 

'Maybe the words are the same for everyone, but how we read them is not. I am the writer of my own book. I am also the reader and also the book. And when we speak to others, we become part of each other's stories. We share the same moments in our own unique ways, creating infinite versions of each other with every meeting. Distinct, yet of one essence. I guess I find that comforting.'
 

She nodded, noting the weariness in the old man's face. They shared each other's pain for a moment.
 

'We all have our path, of course,' he said. 'Tell me about this movie of yours.'
 

'Like I said, nothing big,' she said. 'I'm reading for an actress who winds up dead after an affair with a corrupt producer. Real trashy stuff.'
 

The man leaned in. 'Not a word to my brethren,' he said, 'but I love the trashy stuff. You don't have to pretend to understand it.'
 

She laughed. The loudspeaker announced the boarding of the 3am bus to Los Angeles.
 

'That's me,' she said. She stood up and hauled her backpack over her shoulder. 
 

'Hold up!' the old man said. He reached down and picked up a plastic pouch which had fallen from her backpack. 'Guess it's my turn to save you from losing something.'
 

He glanced at the flower inside before handing it back to her. 'Looks important.'
 

She smiled and shrugged. 'Good luck,' she said. 'Wherever your faith takes you.'
 

'And your dreams you, ma'am,' he said.

She walked across the waiting area to her gate, where an attendant was sitting at the desk. She handed him her ticket and he ran it through the scanner.
 

'Am I the only one travelling?' she asked, noticing the absence of a queue.
 

'For now,' the attendant said. 'It's a long journey. You'll pick up others along the way. Identification?'
 

She pulled her state ID out of her jacket. The attendant looked at it in confusion.
 

'I looked different back then,' she said. 'My natural hair colour.'
 

'Sure,' the attendant said. He double-checked the photo and handed back her card. 'Have a good journey.'
 

'Thanks.'
 

She waited at the double doors, gazing at her reflection in the glass until the attendant pressed the button for them to open. She took a deep breath, buttoned up her jacket against the cold, and walked out into the dark.

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