The Other Side

Death was a strange thing. There was life after death. Life of a sort anyway. I died in my bedroom. Supposedly a heart attack. When I woke from my death, I found myself still in my bedroom, yet, not. I found myself in a dull reflection of my bedroom. I found myself on the other side of the mirror. It wasn't as magical a place as the Alice visited through her looking-glass, but it was my own.

I would watch my wife weep, everyday, through the mirror, into what was our real bedroom. Her tears seemed to never end. I wanted to comfort her. I tried to whisper to her to no avail. Her woe became my woe, my afterlife, a form of hell.

Days turned into weeks turned into months. My life was empty save for when she was in the bedroom. I tried to leave my version of the bedroom, but it was hard. It seemed like it was my anchor point. The farther I tried to get away, the darker my world got.

I learned how to read all of my books that were printed in reverse. They gave me a little distraction. They helped to pass the time between seeing my beautiful wife.

Her tears subsided, even if her sadness did not. Her friends tried to get her to go out more. Over time, she did.

A part of me was shocked when she brought a man into our bedroom for the first time. I watched them couple anyway. I yearned for it to be me with her, and when I heard her accidentally whisper my name as she climaxed, I realized she still yearned for me. The man left with little said, and she cried in guilt.

For a while, after that, she slept alone. The times she would pleasure herself, she still called out to me, but the acts she fantasied us sharing were not ones we shared in when I was alive. Did her desires change with my passing or did she always keep them from me. Regardless, the acts both stirred me and left me sad, that we would never be able to share them.

The next man she brought to the room she loved like she never loved me. My name was never whispered. I felt my room dull a bit. I was becoming forgotten. A part of me yearned for that oblivion.

They married. Eventually, I stopped watching them. It hurt too much, yet I was happy her heart was not burdened by me any longer.

One day I noticed her brushing her hair. When did she get so old? She hummed and smiled. Then her eyes closed and I watched her slip into death.

She was suddenly sitting in the chair on my side of the mirror. She turned to look at me and smiled as if the sun arose. I kissed my wife. She kissed me back, like she had never had before. Our room became our heaven.