Social Short Story – Mirror
Photo Credit: www.cepolina.com
Oily-skin took over her life and controlled it whole. Years went by and she struggled to cope or win any friend. When she did win any they became the best ever she ever had, or hoped for. Visits to skin doctors depressed her and made her wish her sores will just disappear at a snap of a finger or at a said wish. Day after day she’d feel them getting worse and worse. They’d be so painful that she’d fail to concentrate — be it in class at school, at play or in church. Whenever she thought about how her problem-free her friends were— when it came to the opposite sex, how she had to endure countless ridicule from people.
Especially men who ought to know better but were seemingly not clued up about who a woman is, she felt like she could just lock herself up in a room all day, that her mind would just shut the world out so that she wouldn’t have trouble explaining herself to inquisitive people who had no solution for her problem-skin. She began to envy her friends’ beautiful skin. Though she wouldn’t tell them, her actions told them deep down inside of her she was hurting.
In her dark days a mirror became her best companion. He hugged it, kissed it, embraced it, prayed of it to have an everlasting life. Her parents sometimes came to think she was losing her mind because time and time again they’d hear speaking to it over and over again like it was a person. Whenever they knocked on the door of her bedroom and peeped through her bedroom-door’s keyhole, there she was holding a tiny mirror she had kept mounted inside her briefcase’s lid whenever she goes to school or library on her chest like it’s her man.
Frustrated, her mother told her that she had a license to do whatever she liked with her life so long as she wouldn’t blame she and her father later on in life. She told her not be recluse or act like she has a mind problem because their friends are beginning to think that maybe, they’ve turned her into their house-slave.
‘It doesn’t make sense to me either mom,’ she replied. All I’m doing is trying to have harmless fun without having to take out my anger on other people. My friends have caught me doing this countlessly but none have told me I’m acting crazy. But, anyway, thank you for the advise.’
Men mocked her a lot and she knew what their intentions were. They teased her in order to make her lose focus in life. They were of the view that if she ever got irritated by what their words, she’d soon fall for any of them. And she knew that there was no love in any of them. Her father had told them all of men’s tricks. She couldn’t believe her luck when he mysteriously asked her to sit on a chair opposite him on their dining-room’s table and said;
‘My girl, I love you so much and I know that it does get a little bit awkward when a man tells his daughter how much he loves her. But I love you so much to keep things from you. Man of this village are leeches who would suck you dry and leave you distraught and lifeless after they’re finished with you. I’ve heard stories about how they want to get under your skin and as a loving, doting father, I’m flabbergasted and won’t mind doing life in prison for your sake.’
‘Do you really have to take things that far, dad?’ she replied.
‘Yes. Why not?’
She smiled.
They spoke ‘til both of them went to bed. It was Friday evening and her mother had gone out with her friends. She struggled to cope with her father’s openness and thought that if she went on speaking, she may end up saying things she wouldn’t have said had she mulled over them.
A day later, she knew would be a weekend. She wasn’t on curfew but hated parties with all her heart. Unless it was she and her friends’ mini get-togethers were they’d drink light beverages and talk a lot of rubbish. What irked her the most about her life was that no doctor could confirm or deny that she had a problem. They all seemed to look for the cause so as to get answers why she had acne. Her acne got ugly when it was too hot or too cold and she got to hate the word too.
But she loved her boyfriend of years, March. They had known each other for years but no one really knew about it. Her parents only knew him only as a boy who sold fruits and veggies over the weekend. He didn’t know why they valued him so much ‘til he realised that his friend’s facial skin’s condition wasn’t getting any better. He wanted to ask what’s going on with it but feared losing her. Her metabolism was super and most ladies envied her and told her they’d trade anything to have a body like hers but their men cruelly called her names for no reason at all.
March helped her with a lot of advise. This includes giving her confidence when he felt that her friends and her parents weren’t no more doing justice to her soul. They liked sleeping in each other’s beds for the fun of it. But their deeds raised questions and soon people were murmuring because they thought she was no longer different like she used to. They vowed to take honor they used to bestow on her to a next good girl in the village. They scraped and scraped their village’s bowel searching for a good replacement but they found none.
His fruit and vegetables helped her be free from any sickness. They became her staple diet and she was glad they were because in no time her facial-skin-problem disappeared.
–END–
