A Penny For Your Books

I’ve still been feeling as if I’ve been running in circles recently. I don’t write as much as I should, even though the feeling I get when I’m writing is unbeatable. A lot has happened recently, and I’ll give an update soon! In the mean time, here’s a writing prompt piece to help get me back on track:

Prompt: Begin your story with, “It was the hottest day of the year…”

It was the hottest day of the year, August 5th, 1978; the year my life changed forever. Even retrospectively, this wasn’t an event with foreshadowed clues. There was no significant lead-up to the event, no signs that indicated my fate would switch trajectories so dramatically. I suppose it tends to work that way–you’re healthy and happy, until you’re not. At least with most illnesses, the sickness spreads over time and may have clear indications that something is wrong. That was not the case. 

Evangeline was my best friend, and girlfriend too, if we’re being honest. She was an angel of a woman, always looking after me and putting others before herself. But even her neglect of self care wasn’t any kind of foreshadowing for her fate. Forgetting to shower every once in a while does not explain what happened to her. Not even close. 

We had hung out the whole afternoon before it happened. We probably would have been together anyway, but it helped that we were in all of the same classes together. Evangeline was undecided on her major, but still took every course I took. “Undecided” was more of a formality, as she was once again putting my studies and our time together before her own future. For all intents and purposes, with the classes she was taking, she was also an English major. 

We edited each other’s papers, then went to enjoy some ice cream for all our hard work. There was a carnival in town, which happened to be right around the corner from our dessert. Upon my suggestion, Evangeline happily followed me into the chaos.

We spent too much money on rigged games, rode a rickety ferris wheel, and each got our own wax bottle candy bags. I’d never seen her more excited. She pulled me along to each event, making her own decisions about things she wanted to do. First the bottle toss, then a shooting game, then the obviously oval-shaped basketball hoops. It was one of the first times I saw her voice her own opinion about her desires. Even though the decisions were miniscule, her confidence made her particularly beautiful that night. 

Evangeline pointed across the carnival to the main event. The line was short this late  into the night, so we entered the House of Mirrors fairly quickly. She held my hand and darted through the halls, one corner after another. She trusted herself to not run into a mirror more than I did, but in the end it’s hard to tell whose feelings were more accurate.

Evangeline jumped through the hallway, and we were suddenly not holding hands anymore. She was gone, but I hit the glass face-first. It took me a few moments to consider where she could have turned without me, but it took days to understand that she herself was gone. 

I made it through the maze, but Evangeline wasn’t on the outside. I waited for a few minutes, then had an attendant search inside. They informed me that no one exited before me, and that there was no one within the House of Mirrors. Evangeline didn’t make it home that night.

The carnival directors and police reviewed footage that showed her going in, but never coming back out. There was no one in there but us, and every other person that entered made it back out. They even tore the attraction down, carefully, but she was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she was nowhere to anyone, except to me.

After the first week of her disappearance, I started to see her again. Every morning now Evangeline greets me as I wake up, do my hair, brush my teeth, and apply my makeup. Her reflection stands next to mine, mimicking my actions in her own capacity. I know I should hide the mirrors, because each day her specter gets closer to my reflection, her actions more identical to mine. She has mastered the way I brush the knots out of my hair, massage the lymph from my face, and even the way I wing my eyeliner. 

I know I should fear what will happen when her reflection overtakes mine, but I just can’t let her go. I can’t stand the idea of her being truly gone, especially after I already lost her once. Even now I am writing this anecdote in front of a mirror, allowing her to mimic as much of me as she can before whatever happens, happens. 

Each day that I wake, my hair is slightly darker and wavier, freckles less abundant, eyes greener. Sometimes now I feel like a spectator in my own life, but I still feel myself acting as myself, saying the things I would say and doing the things I would do. As much as the feeling should irk me, I don’t mind it.

If keeping Evangeline means losing myself, I’ll do it. Regardless of our future, no one can take my love away from me.