The rear-view mirror

A quiet road in the middle of nowhere will eventually lead somewhere. But for this man driving his car it seems the road is endless.

“I must’ve taken a wrong turn…But where? The road is straight and it was light outside…there was no sign to turn, nor any intersections…perhaps I should’ve listened to my mother…she’s always the one to listen…I hope my car won’t let me down again…but it seemed so right to leave today… I’ve been driving for so long… I hope the road leads to…where am I going again? I’m so lost…” Despair and anger have taken over his mind. He couldn’t remember where or why he went on the road that day. It’s dark now, but it’s not the darkness of the road troubling him, it’s his destination and … something else he just can’t put his finger on…

“I can’t turn around now, my car doesn’t have enough gas… there’s no one around and the music stopped a while ago… why did the music stop? Where could I be that no radio is on? I’ve got to snap out of this state of mind… but how?” His eyes closed for a second as if he was trying to extract those dark thoughts as you pull out bad teeth…but it didn’t work… as he opened his eyes the darkness seemed to grab his car with an imaginary black hand…soon that hand will reach the window… so he stepped on the break and the car stops leaving skid marks on the road...

“What’s happening to me? Where am I going? What is this road? Where am i?” He got out of the car and ran towards the headlights to try and see if there’s anything else other than that road. He was on a road through a forest, there were trees on both sides and the road was straight, both ends in darkness. He tried to see through the trees, but the darkness of the forest was stronger than the moonlight. He walked back into the car, thinking he’d just drive until something will point him in the right way. He looked in the rear-view mirror as reflex. He noticed something strange. He wasn’t in the reflection… his image was…but it seemed it wasn’t him. He was looking at someone in the mirror and knew it was him, but the image he was looking at seemed to be from another place… the place on the other side of that mirror. As he stared into the mirror to try and understand that feeling, he thought he saw something…way back into the forest there was a small light and above it smoke.

“Finally, some hope…”

He turned his head to see it with his eyes and not through the mirror. There was nothing there. He looked back into the mirror to see that light again. The feeling came back; he was still looking into the mirror as if he was on the wrong side of the mirror. The light he saw was a fire, and the smoke came from that light…

“Who would start a fire in the forest at night? And why am I seeing it only in the mirror? Why am I feeling danger? The fire is clearly far away… Maybe I started the fire? But how could i? I was in my car for a long time and that’s a small fire…it would’ve spread quickly through the forest. Wait…what time is it? Is this thing broken? It was 4:30 an hour ago… “

The police report also said 4:30…

The music box

The night crawled over the city and all was dark. The wind was reading a paper all over the street, and the moon was terrified behind a dark cloud that was about to burst into tears.

At the subway, three people were waiting for the final train of the day, obviously late. Mr. Jones was a salesman that had a rotten day, not because of his sales, but because his wife expected her anniversary present and he couldn’t leave the room for that half an hour needed to buy the fucking gift…the other two people were a married couple from a small countryside town that had just moved into the big city hoping that just being in a place like that would bring them fortune and fame, instead they found out about all human idiosyncrasies and about the socially unaccepted behavior that lead them to poverty and day to day living as door to door salespersons. So James and Mary started living the life as they were supposed to in the big city, and as their companion on the train station started lying their asses off in order to get what they always wanted…more money. The night train finally arrived looking as creepy as it could get, and squeaking those breaks so loud that one would think they were about to wreck the old train. All three got into the same cart, and even if the train was on his first stop, an odd man was already there. Surprised at first the three passengers got into the train thinking he was the maintenance man or something like that. The man wore all black clothes and a black hat, and his face was covered all but the eyes, and his eyes were also black. His eyes also had the strangest red lines as if the man was tired, but his big eyes seemed so exposed and following everyone around. As the train left in a hurry, the man opened his long black coat and reached into a side pocket for a white little music box. All the other three looked at him freaking out about the possibility that the man would actually open the lid of that creepy looking old thing. But the man didn’t open the music box; he just held it in his lap as he was waiting for something. Mary looked at James as this was the first good thing that happened to them all day. Mr. Jones swiftly opened his eyes widely, and his face brightened up as a child on Xmas morning that was about to receive a gift. He thought he could ask the man to sell him the music box, and Mrs. Jones wouldn’t sacrifice him as a lamb for Easter. James also smiled thinking that the music box would be a perfect gift for a neglected wife that just had a horrible day. The train rushed into the tunnel and squeaked at every curve, but suddenly it stopped. The lights were turned off and then in a few minutes on, but those few minutes were enough to frighten all three passengers. The man still held the music box quietly, and his eyes were the same as if nothing had happened. Mary stood up to adjust her dress, and as she rose from James’s arms, she thought to ask the man if he was alright. But the thought scared her, because the man’s face was covered and so was his mouth. She still asked, and the man bowed silently to answer the woman’s question. She sat down in the same place, and her inner self was happy-pleased that she had the courage to ask. The man’s eyes started to look frightful as both men, James and Mr. Jones, stood up at the same time, and walked towards the same place next to the man with the music box. They both asked at the same time: “How much for the music box?”. The eyes of the man seemed happy and both Mr. Jones and James thought the man would say his price and then they would both bid for the prized music box. Instead, the man opened the box; although no sound came from it, all three passengers of that train cart stood up and covered their ears. It wasn’t the squeaking sound of train’s wheels; it wasn’t any noise they had ever heard before; they couldn’t even define it as a noise because it was the sound of their own lies, all of their deceit, all they ever said that wasn’t true, all coming to their ears, all at once. They all started screaming, and the sound rose to cover the sound of the train’s wheels. The train was approaching another station. A young girl and her mother awaited the train as any other night. They were at the doors of the cart with the four people already in it, and then those doors opened. The little girl started screaming, but it wasn’t because she heard the indefinable sound, her lies weren’t so many, and she didn’t even hear much of that sound. But inside that cart Mr. Jones, Mary and James, they were all dead…the man with the music box disappeared so all the girl and her mother could see were the three bodies of those pathetic liars, whose lies finally caught up with them. They couldn’t lie any more. Their lies were useless in front of the music box that showed them how much pain their lying brought to others, and their only reason for what they’ve done was…money.