Phantom

                There is a woman who haunts my dreams. She haunts my day, lives in my life. Wherever I go, she follows. She is a constant, steady presence that I can always consciously feel. Sometimes she dances at the edges of my vision, a blur of emerald green and black with a bird’s mask over her face - only maybe sometimes I think it’s a bird’s head lopped off from its corpse and melded to this woman’s skin: it may never come off again. Yet her lips remained, and the few glimpses I did get showed cherry red petals set against dark chocolate skin with a dash of milk.

And it is a beautiful color for a beautiful woman. A terrifying woman. One that only I seem able to see. My life flashes by, only patches and parts of images that I receive, no words, no personal attachments; just flashes. My days are long, my days are short, a cycle that continues, but I always remember her. I always remember her dancing on the edges of my vision, a beautiful creature lusting for attention, her cry a low keening of desperation: see me, love me, hunt me. Find passion for me!

She is a siren of fantastical appearances, and I dared not look for my eyes would only deceive me. My body would turn toward her, and I would walk toward her, and I would see a desirable woman while a banshee lay beneath. A banshee ready to suck my soul from its sockets and leave my hollow carcass behind, likely rotting in a lake to let all the snakes and toads to eat my decaying flesh from my bones.

I woke clear this morning. I woke up sharp, clever, aware of who I am and my surroundings. It was terrifying. The woman was gone; the emerald green bird carcass of a woman was gone and I knew she would be back, but it would be somehow different, and that scared me.

It took me a few moments to process. What was my morning routine? I hadn’t needed to think of such a thing for so long, the haze of being in her presence soaked everything - except for today. It is all so fresh, so clean and crisp. Pressure on my bladder made me jump, and I laughed aloud. First: pee, second: wash hands. I could do that.

Standing over the basin, the rush of liquid left my body. Shake. Button.

The faucet sprouted forth hot water, and I looked at my hands while I scrubbed. The soap bubbled and frothed into life on the backs of my hands and between my palms. Rinse.

I looked up into my mirror, but it was no longer a mirror. It was a window. And she stood there, clear and sharp just as everything else had been thus far. I blinked in shock and reeled backwards, and as I stood against the wall, making no move for the door, I saw that it had to be a mirror - the only thing that was different was the woman in the mirror instead of me. Her bird’s beak hung low down her face and I could just see the red tips of her lips on either side, curved up in a way that made my skin crawl and my spine to get a shiver.

The beak was black, the feathers green. And she stood with grace, looking in at me. And her eyes - which were not really real eyes at all, but the eye that resembles a peacock feather - looked at me with pale blue evil, frigid cold. And she was so devastatingly desirable.

I ached for her; I ached for her beauty; I ached for her love. Her fingers were tipped with long emerald green and black swirl colored talons. The thought of those talons lightly tracing across my skin throbbed in my head.

I flushed in agonizing greed. My face, I knew, grew pale. Seeing her this way, so close to touch and so clear to see - no more glimpses, only full sight now - was wrong. Was lethal.

But unreal. Just my mind playing tricks on me.

I approached the mirror. She stayed perfectly still. One hand raised, quivering, yet with full knowledge of my actions even though I pretended it was only to prove I was wrong, I touched the smooth surface of the mirror.

Only there was no surface.

My hand went right through.

I saw her teeth as her slight smile turned into a grin. I felt her grasp my hand.

And then I was yanked through.