Peter/Susan

Into the mirror of his mother’s downstairs bathroom Peter stared. Susan stared right back. Peter on one side of aluminium, glass and paint, and Susan reflected perfectly back on the other. They stared,
at the pimple pulsing in the centre of Peter’s forehead.

Peter raised two hands, shaking as he placed a finger on either side of the thudding skin spot. Susan watched, her arms pressed tight on either side of her body. Her hands are fists and her fingers are cramping.

Peter shuts his eyes,
and squeezes.

Pressure builds from the base of the spot, forcing pus and blood to the surface of the skin. For a moment the thin tissue holding Peter’s face together remains strong. Peter’s grip tightens and his skin relents.
Blood, pus, and oil tears through his forehead, bursting outwards into the air. In one solid line the grotesque rainbow arcs from Peter’s face and towards the mirror. When hitting surface, instead of splattering as physics would allow, the mess continues through the mirror. Through wall, through reality, until coming to rest.

On Susan’s top lip.

Susan’s lips part and she breathes out. Her lungs flutter and she shuts her eyes. Her tongue snakes from her mouth, pushing upwards and meeting the blood, pus and oil. She runs her tongue up from one side of her mouth, to the other, then back again. Her tongue returns to her mouth and her eyes open.

The ragged hole left in Peter’s head is expanding. Red raw edges and black centre are growing. Soon the wound goes from being just the centre of Peter’s forehead to his entire forehead. The wound becomes eyes, becomes cheeks, becomes mouth. Soon Peter’s face is all but gone, replaced with a hole, still dripping from the edge with yellow and red and in the centre black. Impossibly deep.

Red lines spin from the outside of Peter’s head inwards to the black, becoming a spinning sinking spiral that disappears into nothing. Susan’s eyes roll back in her head and her feet leave the ground. Behind the mirror Susan begins to float forward.
Susan’s body moves through the air as if weightless and when she too meets glass she does not stop. Instead she continues on as if there was nothing there at all. With no resistance or signs of fear Susan flies head first into the hole that was once Peter’s head.

Susan is consumed.

After she disappears into darkness the hole seals itself shut. Peter’s face does not return, replaced now with a solid blank wall of flesh. The mirror reflects nothing and for a moment

there is silence.

Peter’s body twists. An arm jerks and there is a snap as ribs break. Peter’s shoulders convulse, his spin arcs backwards and the sound of fists against meat thumps from inside his stomach. Peter’s body falls.

A hand grips basin
and pulls itself up.

Into the mirror of Peter’s mother’s downstairs bathroom Susan stared. Peter stared right back.