Cherished [Trent Jamieson Remix]

This girl I hang out with sometimes, crawled out of my mirror. She’d been there a while. I’d ignored her, despite her manic grin, for ages. We’d had a falling out. I’d suggested that she buy some new jeans, and they’d looked awful. We’d both known that, in the changing room, still they’d been bought, and well, caveat, fucking emptor.

But then you’re up to your neck in accusations. Stumpy fingers jabbing. All manner of curses.

Perhaps if I hadn’t.

Perhaps if I had acknowledged her or acknowledged her less brutally.

Shit, I don’t know. But then there’s all this stuff with mirrors, and the crawling. From a distance, I’m sure it looks fine, but up close, it’s off-putting.

She ate my cat, then cleaned her disposable razor teeth, with my toothbrush, (yeah, I know) left behind a smear of pinkish toothpaste at the base of the bristles. That was messed up, totally.

She wore a coat of mascara thick enough that she left a trail in the rain: fucking mascara sloughing away,  panda-eyesing the pavement. Black footprints all through the house. Hid the jeans, though, all those crumbling layers of black.

I’d wake, and she’d be there, cold and dripping, against my back, her ragged nails digging into my thighs.

I folded at last.

Fucking blisters.

But I dug, and dug.

Fucking blisters, popping then burning.

Hands aren’t made for such labour.

Found her remains, where I’d left them, dry and cool in my backyard. Soaked them in gasoline, lit the match, and (I know, I know)… but I couldn’t do it. I’d miss her too much.

Exorcisms are so final, and I could get another cat.

The spadework’s always easier on the fill. Covering up that sunless skin, the hair stiff with dried blood and mud.

She howled all through the reburial, puddling black everywhere. But I gritted my teeth even managed a smile.

Couldn’t let her go. You know how it is, you just don’t do that to a beloved friend.

 

The Trent Jamieson Remix is licensed under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence. It is a derivative work of Emily Maguire’s CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licensed story. The original is available at http://www.remixmylit.com/storiesremixes/emilymaguire/. For details on how you can reuse the original and this remix see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/au/.