Coriolis. A short tale.

He stared at the mirror, at the composite he had become. It held a reflection capturing his bitterest Hyde and Jekyll moments. He placed his hand firmly on the vanity, turned on the tap and watched the water spiral down the drain.

“You f$&@ing, arrogant, conceited prick,” he said. In the mirror his other self sneered, spitting vitriol. “Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re better than everyone else? Do you think you deserve more? Are you entitled? Who gives you the right to think you should be f$&@ing happy?”

The unblinking visage stared back at him. He was eye to eye with a ghost, a soliloquy made real. “She doesn’t even know you, you stupid, f$&@ing idiot.”

And there it was. The source of all his ire, ensnaring and holding him hostage, his personal Stockholm Syndrome. The one thing that kept him awake every aimless night. The thing that kept him longing insanely and losing himself sanely.

He thrust his finger at the mirror accusingly. “Why would you even attempt to believe that she was right for you? She doesn’t know you from a bar of soap.” He grabbed the slimy soap block from the vanity and threw it hard into the bathroom wall, where is clonked and slid to the floor. For dramatic effect? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore.

Tears welled in his eyes. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. “I’m giving her up,” he said. “I’m tired of loving and hating how I feel when she’s around. I’m tired of never being able to let her know how I feel. I’m tired of fooling myself anymore.” His mirror self slumped, the weight that should have lifted now magnified a thousand fold.

He looked at the empty eyes—the hollow, skeletal black holes were event horizons from which only sadness could escape. “It’s better this way. Who needs hope, anyway? There’s no point in purpose. It’s just another anchor to drag you down.”

The room seemed darker now, the embodiment of his thoughts. He slid to the floor, pulled down into a personal ocean of despair. He turned his back to the wall and collapsed into himself like the singularity he had become.

“It’s better this way.” But there was no one else to listen, and the whisper of his voice sounded even more hollow in the tiny tiled room that was just as much a cage as his head. Better this way, he thought.

The tap kept running, the stream of his pain a twisting coriolis, swirling downwards to a confusion of pipes and an endless, empty sea.

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Actually, a true story. But if you’ve been following my posts you’d know that, lol.

Cheers

Steve 🙂