There are three characters in this little story.
The girl.
The camera.
And the mirror.
The camera is aimed at the girl in the mirror. The girl is watching the camera through the mirror. The scene is set.
The light is a bluish green, a shitty institutional florescent little light above the mirror. It works about half the time. The times it doesn’t, it gives a creepy dark green glow on everything. The times it does, well, this is what you get. The bluish green. The areas hit by light are institutional as well. From the cream-white walls painted over who knows how many times to the crappy little sink you can’t help but drop everything down. From the cap to the Bactine bottle to thousands of bobby pins.
The mirror is the door to a cheap plastic medicine cabinet. It's half stocked. Primarily allergy and pain drugs. These aren't the girl's. She doesn’t believe in medicating, unless its absolutely necessary. The mirror has rounded, metal lined corners. Suitably institutional.
To the left of the mirror are a counter top and a column of shelves, containing towels, make-up, hair gel, etc etc etc. All that girly crap nearly every girl has and not one has enough room for. The top shelves hold the various gifts of lotion and such that she'll never really look at again, much less use.
To the right is a towel bar. There's a little towel ring above it. There's a towel in each, one is the girl's and one is not.
On the left further away from the mirror is the girl's closet. A large pile of dirty clothing waits on the floor. A few good dresses and jackets are hung up above it. On the shelf above, clothes that she'll never wear wait for her.
On the right, further back, is the bathroom. Beyond that, the kitchenette.
Beyond that, on both sides, is the room.
The room doesn’t matter. The bathroom doesn't matter. The kitchenette doesn't matter. The closet doesn't matter. Only the area immediately surrounding the mirror matters.
The girl sets the camera up on the second shelf up, double checking to make sure the view is what she would like. She turns it on. The glowing red eye glares angrily, impatiently. It wants the action to begin.
The girl looks into the mirror. Into that other world. She's lost for a few minutes in her own eyes. She can't put her finger on it, but there's something wrong in the way they're staring back at her. Two minutes go by. Three. Four. Finally, the little red dot catches her peripheral vision. It doesn’t like the wait. She figures that the mirror eyes won’t reveal their secrets any way.
She's already put a white hand towel folded up to the left of the sink. First to take its place on the towel is the thin purple ring she wears on her thumb. Next, she carefully takes the bead out of her lip ring. She places that and the ring on the towel. Next to go is the barbell in her tongue. The circular barbell in her septum. The rings in her nipples. The flesh tunnels in her ear lobes. Finally, the tiny little ring in her tragus. They line up on the towel like little soldiers off to war. She looks back in the mirror. With decorations gone, she's surprised by how she looks. It's been at least two years since there was no metal in her, on her. The two tattoos, she can't do anything about. By looking in the mirror, she is unable to see them, though. They go the way of the room and the closet, insignificant.
If it weren’t for the fact that her ears looked hole-punched, the little scar on her lip, the rest of the little scars, she could be just another ordinary girl. Not strange in the least. Perfectly ordinary.
Next to the towel, she had earlier placed an Exacto-knife. She figured it would be the best tool or weapon or whatever it should be called.
She’s done her research. The exact location she wants. She’s pictured it thousands of times, in her head, in her dreams. It's been weeks, months, nearly a year of this. These near constant images. Of course, dreams cannot tell everything. For the rest, she’s looked into in Gray’s Anatomy. To find which cut would be most effective.
She wants to create. That is part of it. The theatrics. The end result of a red spray on the impersonal walls. She knows she’s no good with a blank canvas or a lump of clay. So this is her creation. The tape will be her evidence. She just wants to create what she’s dreamt so many times. She wants it to look as perfect as the image in her head. Nothing she’s previously attempted has matched what she can only see in her mind, but this is closer. The walls are her canvas and her blood the paint.
Even the first time she dreamed this, she thought about how it was recreating something she had already been through. She’s never seen the end result, but it's been perfect every time.
She has two empty canvases awaiting. The walls and the videotape. She doesn’t think about that, though. Her mind is on the impatient red dot.
She tells herself that shejust wants to see it happen. Really, she just wants to watch.
There’s only her in the mirror with the white wall of the room behind her in the background. All her movements take place with her looking straight into her mirror eyes. Into that realm, as if it's only happening there – what she’s watching could never take place in real life.
As she picks up the knife, she doesn’t even have to pinpoint the little line she’s already decided upon. Now, it's all natural. Its happened so many times that it's habit. Her gaze is steady, and her eyes clear. There will be no tears. Without blinking or flinching, the blade enters. By the time she’s done, its already begun.
Getting weaker, she’s turned her gaze on the camera. The little red dot is the last thing she sees before the fall to the floor.
She misses the masterpiece she’s created. She’s on her back staring at the ceiling as her vision goes black. Hearing is gone by this point as well, she never heard her head hit the ground.
An artist’s work is never fully appreciated during their lifetime.