The Creature Lies

I look forward, yet I cannot see. Although reflected, I am blind to reality. I stare into myself, a stranger; this face is not a passerby or someone I will ever meet on the street. A stranger, I think, yet I am intimately familiar with her without ever having truly met her. The creature of my existence who puppeteers this stranger hides inside us, hiding behind the mirror. I look unto her in admiration, but the beast whispers lies until she is warped and misshapen. I am filled with disgust and must avert my eyes, turning away from the stranger who has become impossibly foreign despite my laying eyes on her everyday.

“She is the beast,” it whispers. “She is a creature of misfortune and misery. You must get rid of her.” It clutches onto my very being and digs its claws into the essence of my existence, flooding the train with thoughts of despair and messages of hate.

As time passes, it becomes quiet. The creature is pleasant. It’s always been pleasant to most strangers, but it wasn’t to her even though she’s the stranger we’ve known since the start of time. I’ve come to convince it. Granted it took time, but as the silence billows about the train, the creature is calm. It sees something it doesn’t like but has learned to forgive the stranger; forgive her for the skin she was born into, forgive her for the bones that make up her physique. I offer a soft smile to the creature in appreciation.

The stranger is her own undoing and salvation synchronically, but she couldn’t have known over the sound of the beast’s writhing and whispering. I sit across from her as the sun rises behind us and stare into myself. I do not avert my eyes, but offer a sigh. She is a stranger I am intimately familiar with, and I find myself becoming more fond of her each time we sit together in silence. We can only look at each other in the same instance, but that is enough to find her eyes and tell her it is okay as the creature quietly agrees.