By Leorah McGinnis
The veil thins in autumn.
It is a season of transitions; as the natural world is full of death
and a descent into dormant sleep,
the barriers between us and… the places beyond… grow as translucent as a cobweb,
swaying in the breeze
and long abandoned
by its eight-legged maker.
By the end of October, the things that go bump in the night are bumping their loudest.
Every night I see a face in the mirror.
When I rise groggily from bed,
Because I drank too much tea,
I slink to the bathroom
With eyes trained on the floor.
In the corner of my eye,
I see movement in the mirror,
a pale face,
but I do not look.
My house is full of monsters because I choose not to look for them. All the long forgotten dark things from all the corners of the world can find a safe haven in my attic and under my bed and inside all the closets that don’t quite latch shut. Sometimes I hear them rustle, and I feel their cold eyes weighing me. I lie in bed in the dark, and I see glowing eyes peering from the corners, and patches of purest black creeping across my ceiling. And still, I do not turn the light on.
I do not call out,
do not inquire of their presence
or motives
or identity.
Because I do not want to hear the answer.
I do not look into mirrors in the dark. If I cannot see the pale face and black eyes and gleaming teeth looking back at me, she cannot reach out through the glass to stroke my cheek. If I do not see it, that pressure I feel is merely a stirring of the air. As long as my eyes remain averted, they cannot make contact to form a bridge and connect me to my nightmares.
I do not need to fight what I refuse to see.
The longer I refuse to look for them, the more monsters I accumulate.
I know that they’re there, biding their time. I know that someday, at critical mass, my house will hold no more dark and dangerous things, and they will come spilling out to devour me. I know I cannot escape them, and yet I choose not to see them.
Run away, little Cat
before I catch you in my web
and spin you into something dark
And do not look in the mirror.
Originally from Colorado, Leorah McGinnis is now a master’s student at the Penn State School of International Affairs. When she’s not studying dispute resolution or teaching labs in the Biology Department, she enjoys writing short stories and poetry.