Broken Mirrors

The melodious and joyful sound of the morning bird awakens me. My eye snaps open in the semidarkness of

my curtained room. I sit up groggily, my mind a mess and my muscles sore, trying to remember what it was I did to make myself so tired. Then I remember the activities of the previous day, and a wide grin spreads across my twisted features.

I get dressed before I make my way to the bathroom and pull the cord to the light bulb, illuminating the room.

The mirror is, of course, broken. As are all the other mirrors in the house after a fit of jealous rage one late night.

Grabbing my toothbrush, I hastily smear it with toothpaste and run some water underneath it. I cannot be late for work again; my boss has already warned me twice before of the impending consequences that should befall me if I am unfortunate enough to not make it on time. I do, however, have the sneaking suspicion that it may just be another case of prejudice.

That feeling wells deep up within me, the one that I have had to deal with for the better part of twenty four years, in other words my entire life.

It’s hard to describe, but I always know when it’s going to ail me once more. It’s the feeling I get whenever I think of how much I have been unfairly discriminated against. I let out a deep sigh before running the brush back and forth across my teeth. At least I’ll have a little something to cheer me up tonight. Again, my lips twitch upwards and I glance sideways at the drawn shower curtain before spitting and reaching for my hairbrush.

My hair has always been a real bitch to brush, and I wince as the bristles grate against the knots in my long mop that I have used for so many years to cover my face. I distinctly remember being called a faggot in middle school for this very reason. More conflicting memories cross my mind and I close my eye, pushing them out, before continuing to groom my long locks of brown hair until they cascade down my back. In the final step of my morning routine I dunk my head under some cold water before once again brushing out my tresses.

A new policy of mine is to just grab some fruit as I’m heading out the door and eat that as my breakfast while I make my way to the bus stop down at the curb. It is much quicker than having to sit down and eat. The only drawback is that I have to bring a small paring knife with me as I go, so that I can cut the fruit into smaller pieces and not risk the possibility of choking. Luckily I have found a way to keep this knife in the folds on the inside of my leather briefcase.

I walk out the door, carefully cutting the pear I have chosen from my fruit bowl into smaller bits and pieces as I chew systematically, avoiding the hole in the roof of my mouth. I shiver in the chilly winter air, and a gust of wind makes me pull my jacket tighter around me.

An elderly woman walks her dog down the street as I have seen her do every morning. I never bothered to learn her name. Even if this is a small neighborhood, people tend to avoid talking to people like me. Not that there is anyone else like me around here that I know of. The first time this woman saw me I remember her mouth dropping open in shock and her dog growling. She hastily looked away and prodded the mutt, whispering for it to keep moving. We have never exchanged a word in my three years of living here. We are always on the opposite side of the street and we always separate when I halt at the bus stop.

After about five minutes of waiting on the cold metal bench that sits on the curb, the bus finally comes around the corner and squeals into my street. I get up and board the bus, paying the toll to the driver before I make my way to the very back seats.

Eventually we get to the city and I am dropped off at the auto shop where I work. My job is only a sort of custodian. I’m the one who does all the chores and occasionally fixes up a car. Once my boss even let me work the counter, but he quickly made sure that never happened again after a rising number of complaints, the fuckers.

The work I do is long and tedious. There are endless hours of mopping floors and scrubbing the bathroom stalls, but I suppose I should almost be thankful to have a job at all. Discrimination… I feel the rising in my gut again, but I push it back, and continue with my work until it’s time to go home.

About six months ago, I would have simply taken a nap in the comfort of my home, but since, I have taken up some different pastimes. I know what I am to do. I make my way up to the bathroom and reach for the shower curtains. Then, I catch a glimpse of my fragmented reflection in the cracked mirror. I have forgotten to shave.

I take my straight razor out of its special case before reaching into the cabinet under the sink and withdrawing the one mirror in the house that has not been broken, my special shaving mirror.

Looking into it, I take in the details of my face… the drooping eye, disfigured nose, sagging skin, and crumpled lips. A thin layer of stubble has grown on my chin and cheeks. I gingerly touch it and the rough sensation makes my fingertips itch. I remove my shaving cream from on top of the toilet before sitting and applying generous amounts to my face. Having a facial deformity can save you from having to do a lot of things, but shaving is not one of them.

I remember my father only briefly when I was a child, one of the things I always did was to wait outside his bathroom when he was shaving, he liked to grow out his stubble, and when he came out of the bathroom he looked like a completely different person. We would have a game we played where I would pretend I didn’t know who he was when he came out. One time he said that he was a monster and he jokingly chased me around the house, arms outstretched and his face in a mask of false menace. I tried to run, but I was laughing too hard and eventually he caught up with me, he tickled me, making me laugh even harder until I was short of breath.

Then one day a police officer showed up at the door instead of my father coming home from work. I never got to hear the conversation that occurred between the officer and my mother. I just remember hearing a gasp of shock, accompanied by racking sobs as the cop tried to console her. I tried to eavesdrop in on the conversation after that, but my mother had hurried to shut the door. I only caught one word…Car accident.

Then came the painful years that my mother accentuated with the mourning of her loss, on the weekends she wouldn’t get out of bed at all, and I had to learn how to provide for myself. Getting food out of the pantry was difficult in and of itself due to how incapable I was, but I was forced to learn how. Eventually, I made my own meals every day as well as doing my own chores. I had a list specifically set up in my bedroom for this very reason, and as the day went on and more necessities were completed, I would check them off.

However, through my faith in God I learned that I shouldn’t cut my mother off and shouldn’t be angry at her. I forgave her with the thought in mind that she would come out of her shell eventually.

There was also school to worry about. I had always been a pretty smart kid, but I found no reason to apply myself. I was one of those children who didn’t particularly care about my grade because I didn’t think it was very important. As it was, I passed my classes with C’s and D’s. But if I ever had the chance, I would back in time and try as hard as I possibly could in school. Maybe if I just had tried, I wouldn’t be the person that I am now, working for minimum wage in an auto shop, practically living in poverty, with no wife or children. Although I suppose I can’t really blame the last one on all the education that I missed.

The disease in which I have had since birth has ensured that I will never know love, and it is this that hurts me more than anything else. I’ve had so many surgeries that I’ve honestly lost count, although I know its cost me several thousands of dollars and it’s a leading factor to my financial instability. But all this has done no good. I am still ugly and unwanted by any woman.

When I was only in the sixth grade I acquired my first crush on a girl. Her name was Rosemary. A pretty blue eyed redhead who was bubbly and excitable, all the time laughing and seemingly trying to live a happy life. I distinctly remember thinking “She didn’t matter to me before, why does she matter now?” No other guy I knew really had as much interest in her as I did, and I was ever so infatuated with her. Every once in a while, whether I was in class or recess or lunch, I would feel my eyes sliding over to her direction.

I made the mistake of confiding in someone who I thought was my friend.

I sat next to this kid, Doug, every day in my math class. He often helped me whenever I was in a tight spot with a difficult problem, and this was (to me) an extremely nice gesture since most people avoided me altogether. I told Doug about my obsession with Rosemary only to be scorned at. His immediate response was something along the lines of “You like Rosemary? She’s a ginger you dumbass.”

Tears immediately welled up in my eye and he quickly apologized through a bemused grin before swearing that he wouldn’t tell another living soul. Little did I know that he would tell a single person… his best friend, and make him swear to secrecy as well, that friend would then tell another, who would tell another, the cycle continued until every last person in the entire fourth grade knew my secret, including Rosemary. That day I learned a very valuable lesson that I have kept with me through all my years. People are shitheads, don’t trust them. Without meaning to afterwards, I caught Rosemary’s eye in the middle of class when I was staring at her. Color rose in my cheeks and I furtively glanced in another direction. When I risked another look, I saw a look of utmost pity in her eyes.

I hate people who pity me. There’re fuckers, every last one of them. I am another person. Nothing more and nothing less and I’m getting damn tired of individuals who treat me like I’m a puppy who has been beaten. I want equality, which is something I know I can never obtain.

From that moment on, I hated Rosemary with everything I had. Whereas I used to indulge in fantasies in which I held her and kissed her, I now had fantasies of beating her while wearing a ski mask. Every time in my dreams I would use a baseball bat and violently bludgeon her arms and stomach until they were bruised and bloody. Then, at the finale, I would take off my mask, revealing my face. She let out one last scream louder than all the rest before I cracked her skull between her eyes. This was the first time I ever truly wanted to hurt anyone, and at the time I thought I must be a little insane. I know better now.

The years passed slowly and regretfully. There were many other guilty crushes on girls and whatnot, though I never told another living soul.

When I was thirteen years old my mother started to get up more often. She would drive off and not come back until late afternoon. Whenever I asked her where she went, she never gave me a truthful answer. However, I found out soon enough.

One day I just came home from school and the door to the house was unlocked. The key that was tucked away under the welcome mat was untouched, implying that my mother had let someone inside…

A repair man was my initial thought, since we had to have our television fixed at the time. You can probably imagine my surprise when I found her sitting on the kitchen counter, laughing and eating ice cream, with a man I had never seen before.

Right from the start, I didn’t trust him. His toothy smile was plainly false. He was hoping to score points with me, get the message across that he was the good guy. He had rehearsed the whole thing somehow, with my mother. To a regular person, however, he would seem perfectly likeable. His spectacles and neatly combed hair had probably convinced many others that he was an okay person, but never me. This is one aspect of disfigurement that not a whole lot of people think of. You see who people really are before they say a word to you.

“Honey, I’d like you to meet Mr. Jeffries. I met him just the other day. He was so kind! I dropped my bag and he was nice enough to help me gather my things. Of course we got to talking and we found out we have several things in common… Leon Lionel! Just where do you think you are going?”

At this point I was backing out of the room. I didn’t like this situation, not any of it. I was not a person who could easily adapt to changes, and for whatever reason, the idea of my mother dating didn’t appeal to me. This was selfish I know, but I couldn’t be helped. I knew I would be in trouble later on, my mom only called me by my first and last name when she was angry, but I didn’t care.

My mother started to go out with Mr. Jeffries more and more often (or “Hank” as my mother called him). He would always appear outside our house in a shiny black Plymouth, smiling and waiting for my mother to come join him so that he could give her a welcoming kiss and open the door for her. He loved that car. It was the same car that they drove off in for their honeymoon a year and a half later.

I noticed a change in my mother after she got married. She slept in more often and usually had bags of weariness under her eyes. She began to lose weight, which was concerning since she had always been skinny in the first place. But, at the same time, she and Hank appeared to be drawn closer together.

There were nights when I could hear them fucking through the walls. At first I tried to block it out, pulling my head underneath my pillow and squeezing my eye tight shut. It didn’t work. Eventually I got out of bed, knelt and prayed to God to please make this nightmare end. I prayed long and hard until my mother’s moans reached a higher point as they climaxed. After that I would pray a little longer before finally going to bed. To this day, religion is something I have kept near and dear to me. In my living room right now there lays a large crucifix on the mantelpiece. I sometimes stop to pray for forgiveness for the things I have done.

I’ll never forget the night that I discovered the truth behind Mr. Jeffries. It was late at night and I had to use the bathroom. I was going to use my own but the toilet had not been working properly lately, so, quiet as a mouse, I snuck into my mother’s bedroom.

The lamp was on, and it illuminated the room, my mother was asleep beside Mr. Jeffries. On the nightstand beside the bed there was a black case that I had never seen before. My curiosity got the best of me and I crept forward and inspected the contents of the case.

There were two injection needles, a spoon, some cotton, a lighter, and what appeared to be black tar.

My mother was addicted to heroin.

How did she hide it from me? How the hell did I not know? These questions bubbled up inside me and before long an inferno of pure hatred was burning within, hatred for this man who had corrupted my mother and stolen her from me. I had to do something, something that would tear him up and hurt him bad. That fucking bastard would get what he deserved.

First thing was first; I flushed the remaining heroin down the toilet. After that was over and done with, I thought good and hard about how to hurt Hank Jeffries.

Than it came to me, and a smirk of grim satisfaction turned on my twisted lips. Taking a hammer from the cabinet and a kitchen knife from the drawer, I slip outside into the open night air without a sound. The garage lies up ahead, with Hank’s Plymouth parked safely inside. Or so he seems to think. Walking up to the closed doors, I observe the padlock with disgust. With a single swing from the hammer, the lock cracks and I am able to break it away before swinging to two doors wide open.

The car sits there, absolutely beautiful. The glass has been recently cleaned and the paint job is in pristine condition. Not even a scratch to be found. For a moment I almost feel guilty. Then the hammer is in the air and plunging down, shattering the back window. I work my way around, smashing the car door windows before turning to the windshield. This would be more difficult to break, I knew. With ever swing of the hammer that I took, I muttered a new curse.

“That stupid”

Crack

“Fucking bastard”

Crack

“Son of a bitch!”

 CRASH

The windshield splinters under the wrath of my hammer, I sweep away the shards of glass on the hood with my arm, cutting it open in the process but not feeling a thing, before dropping the hammer with a dull thud and pulling the kitchen knife from my back pocket. I climb inside the car, slashing the upholstery and wrecking the wires, before working the car door open and slashing the tires as a final deed of damage.

After that was over and done with, I went inside and bandaged my arm, my mother and Mr. Jeffries had, of course, heard nothing. They were both far too high on their last dosage of heroin. I replaced the tools before crawling back into bed and trying to get some sleep, but this was near impossible. Some of the adrenaline from the romp I took destroying Hank’s car was still pumping through my veins, and anyways, I was excited to see the reaction that would certainly come tomorrow when Hank discovered his drugs had been flushed and his cared wrecked. It was like trying to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. But eventually, I managed…

I awoke to the sound of screaming and crying. Not Hank’s, as I originally expected, but my mother’s. I jumped out of bed and dashed off to see what the matter was, but found only that the door to my mother’s room was locked from the inside. I heard Hank roar with rage.

“Ellen! You bitch! Where the hell are my drugs? What the fuck happened to my car?”

“Please Hank, I don’t know, just please stop doing this to me!”

There was a loud slap. Hank had just hit my mother. A primal fear rose in me then, and I realized I had to do something. I looked around for anything to help my situation. Under the sink! There was an ax that we owned in the case of a fire! I ran and grabbed it before returning to the door. I pummeled at it furiously, pleading to God under my breath, “Please God just let this door open.”

I heard Hank laughing from the inside. “Hear that Ellen? You’re little freak is trying to come and save you!” there was more laughter, and anger kicked in. I stopped trying to break down the door.

“Please Hank whatever you do please don’t hurt my baby!”

“I’ll do more than hurt him you bitch! I’m going to kill that little shit!

I raise the ax high in the air before swinging down and splitting the doorknob. With the lock no longer in my way I kicked the door open and charged inside. My mother was cowering in the corner, and Hank stood over her, belt in hand. He turned around to face me; gloating at first, then fear crossed his face as he saw what I was carrying. I swung the ax.

Hank backs up fast, holding up one hand to protect himself. The ax grazes his forearm and draws crimson blood. His back hits the wall and looks at me in complete shock. He has nowhere to run now. I swing the flat part of the ax around, he tries to duck but is a second too late. The blunt metal strikes his temple and he crumples to the ground, unconscious.

The police were called. In only a few minutes there were plenty of sirens and flashing lights outside, Hank was carried out on a stretcher.

My mother has perfectly capable of making a convincing lie. She said that Hank has snapped after discovering a vandal had trashed his car and having one beer too many. This much was true, cans of the devil water were strewn across the bedroom. I knew Hank would be forced to play along; possession of heroin was very much against the law, worthy of even prison time, as a matter of fact.

I was let off; I was of course acting in self defense. I was told by my mother that Hank was forced to get stitches for his arm and that I had apparently given him a concussion, serves that bastard right. Needless to say they got a divorce and that was the last I ever heard of him.

My mother and I became very close. When high school came, my grades were improved enough to get me into the best classes. I couldn’t believe it! For the first time ever, I was one of the smart kids.

Then I became a target for school bullies.

This was nothing new, I had been bullied for all of my life, but it was only when I got into high school that things really went to hell. I was actually excited to be in all my new classes. How was I to know that I would be treated like shit, and cast out by my classmates?

It came over very subtle in the beginning, as I walked into my advanced math class I noticed a change as I entered the room. I swear that people are capable of sensing what they consider to be abnormal before they even fully see it. I am no exception. As if on cue, about a dozen heads turned around to look at me. Some of them tensed, many stole glances at each other. One boy sitting in the back curled his lip at me in complete disgust. He wasn’t the kind of boy who would strike you as a typical bully. He was scrawny and had curly brown hair that bounced at the slightest movement. The only clue towards his aggressiveness was the black ‘Number of the Beast’ Iron Maiden T-shirt that he so obviously wore with pride, that and the fact that he looked to be about three or four years older than everyone else. This boy was to be my tormentor for the next year.

It all started when I felt a balled up piece of paper hit me in the back of the head in the middle of math, I ignored it. After being bullied for years I’ve learned not to let the little things bother you. Another piece hit me and this time it stuck to the back of my long hair. I pulled at it only to discover that someone had attached gum to it. The only way to get it out would be with scissors. I raised my hand tentatively. Everyone laughed out of spite (of course), and my teacher, Mr. Brenner was able to pull the paper loose, but the gum stubbornly refused to be removed.

“Who was it who threw this?” Mr. Brenner inquired sternly, holding the paper in the air. Not one single person said so much as a whisper.

“Are you seriously telling me that there is not one, single, solitary student in this classroom who happened to see a peer throw a paper at Leon here?”

Again, not a word from the class, they all just stared right back at Brenner. Brenner sighed and massaged his temples before saying in a calm and monotonous voice,

“All right everybody; I want you all to take out a piece of paper. On this paper, you can anonymously write what you just saw.”

Everyone did what Brenner demanded, and within minutes all the papers were taken up, Brenner read them all one by one until he found one that apparently interested him. He looked it over for a solid minute; I think he read it twice. Then he lifted his gaze and stared directly at the boy who had glared at me earlier.

“Clive Cane? Did you throw this paper at Leon?”

The boy looked Mr. Brenner in the eye and growled out the words “What the hell are you talking about?”

Mr. Brenner’s nostrils flared and he steadily rose to his feet. “Principal’s office, now Clive, you’re not off to a very good start. I don’t want to have to retain you again.”

Mr. Brenner turned to the door proceeded to open it. As soon as his back was turned Clive held up two middle fingers, one to Mr. Brenner and one to me. Many students stifled laughter. No one paid any mind to the look of unprovoked hatred that Clive shot it my direction. After that he left the classroom and I didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

I did see him again the day after that.

He was a savage and relentless bully from that point on, cursing me, throwing things at me, never hesitating to spite me while everyone was watching.

And yet somehow, I ignored it. At this stage in my life I had learned to ignore bullying from my peers. It had grown into something that I was used to. Anyways, Clive never did anything in school to physically harm me. That is, until the night at the movie theater. I can’t even remember what movie I went to go and see. I just remember being it being a comedy. I was laughing along with everyone else when I felt something wet and cold being poured down my back. I jumped up to see Clive behind me, grinning like he had won a medal, with an empty drink cup in his hand. I froze, and did nothing to move as Clive’s fist slammed into the left jaw of my face. I staggered a little in the row before running as fast as I could. Stumbling and nearly falling, shoving open the exit sign. I heard joyous laughter, and Clive and his buddies jumped over the seats in hot pursuit. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I sprinted into the cold winter air before Clive tackled me head on.

He rolled me over so that I was facing up. I could smell alcohol on his haggard breath. He and his friends were drunk. They probably had been able to smuggle liquor into the theatre somehow. He smiled at me with his yellowed teeth.

“Hey there you fucked up little shithead!”

He spat on my face, and I winced, turning my head to the side.

“Just in case you didn’t know, your face is pretty fucked up! So if you don’t mind, we were wondering if you’d give us the pleasure of fucking it up a little more!”

There was more cruel laughter from the guys, and one feminine giggle. I looked up to see three boys and a single girl dressed in a red parka and black boots. She was made beautiful by her rosy cheeks and shiny blonde hair. Clive notices my attentiveness to her and he laughs.

“You’re interested in the girl huh? Well, I can’t blame you. Carol is very beautiful. Unfortunately for you, she’s taken right now, and even if she wasn’t, what would it matter? You’re such an ugly son of a whore it wouldn’t matter.”

At this point I was crying. I couldn’t help it. Why were they being this way to me?

“You’re not crying now are you?” Clive taunts. “We didn’t even do anything that bad to you. But we will. Isn’t that right you guys?”

This was met by many cries of “Hell yeah!” and “Fuck him up!” And with this simple gesture, they lit into me like nothing else I had ever experienced. Multiple fists were all pounding my face and body with a nonstop, drunken power, and there was little I could do to resist. Try as I might, I just couldn’t overcome their brute strength. The one thing I really remember, however, that has stuck with me through all these years, were the terrible things they said to me as they committed this violent beating.

“Go and fucking kill yourself!” One of them yelled.’

Another cried out “You are a worthless piece of shit! You mean nothing!”

And over it all, I could hear the girl, Carol, laughing uncontrollably in her altered state of mind.

The next thing I know, all I can hear is the loud Blair of a siren and see red and blue lights from my blurred vision. Strong hands lift the boys off of me, and they are roughly shoved into the back of a Police car. Carol had stopped laughing.

I was taken to the emergency room, badly concussed and sporting many heavy bruises. My already deformed nose was broken, making it hard to breath. My eye was swollen, and sore to the touch. Luckily I was only beaten for a short period of time, although that was still time enough to do some serious damage.

Last I heard both Clive and all the boys who accompanied him were sent to a correctional facility in California. I remember several times after the incident I would sit on the sill of my second story window, looking down at the pavement below, wondering what it would be like to jump. Surely it couldn’t be that bad, right? One moment of pain to end the nightmare my life has always been. Once or twice I almost convinced myself, but in the end I never did it, one of the biggest reasons being that it says in the bible that you go to hell if you commit suicide.

My suffering reached a whole new level when my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer two years later.

She just keeled over coughing one day and she wouldn’t stop. When I drove her to the doctor’s office they performed several tests, but ultimately discovered that there was a cancerous inoperable tumor growing inside her lung.

Why me?

That was the question that kept repeating over and over again in my mind. Why do these terrible things happen to me?

I dropped out of high school. What other choice did I have? I had to take care of my weakened mother. There were no other members of our family. I would have to do what no one else could. So I made my education a sacrifice. Life went on and my mother only grew sicker and sicker. Her coughs became violent, and I caught her spitting up blood. We didn’t have the money for any kind of treatment due to us being incredibly poor. I knew she was dying and that there was nothing I could do about it. I prayed night and day for God to send someone to help us. I eventually found a job working part time at a restaurant, and I used the money I earned to buy her medicines to relieve cough and pain, but I knew it wasn’t doing any good.

One day I just woke up and I didn’t hear her cough. I knew she was in her room, dead.

I called 911 anyway, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Then I lay down on my bed and cried.

I looked upwards and asked in my grief “Why did this happen to me?” quietly at first.

Then I yelled it as loud as I could.

“Why did this happen to me!?”

I wasn’t really expecting an answer, so it surprised me when, for the first time in my entire life, I heard the heavenly voice of an angel whisper in my ear.

“Don’t worry Leon; everything is going to be fine, I promise.”

At first I thought there was someone in the room with me, and I jumped up and looked around fervently. Nobody was in that room but me. I heard the voice of an angel of God. I couldn’t believe it. An immediate sense of peace fell over me like a veil. The angel was right. Everything was going to be okay.

I thought that was going to be the last time I heard from God’s angel, so I was surprised when, a year later, I heard the voice again. This time, it gave me instructions to save the money I had earned and move to Wilmington, North Carolina. It told me that it was there were I wound find my divine meaning in life. It was only two years later, from both the money I had inherited from my mother and the money I had saved from my minimum wage job, that I was able to follow the instructions of the angel.

So, there I was. For a good long while, nothing happened. I got my job in the auto shop and continued living my life. All the time I was longing for a woman. I got a Facebook account. It was a fake account under the alias Gale Wright, and I used it to look at pictures of all the women in the area. Almost every one of them was enjoying their life. Smiling and taking pictures with their friends and family. Why couldn’t I be like them?

Then, approximately one year ago, I heard the voice of the angel once more. It whispered in my ear to go to the park by the high school. It told me I would find the very thing to make me happiest there. My mind spun at the possibilities. What could it be that the angel was referring to?

The park wasn’t really a park at all. It was more of wooded area that people used for recreational activities, including waterskiing on a lake that was surrounded by large conifer trees.

I went to the park and sat down on an old dirty bench. Watching and waiting for anything or anyone to cross my path. This was the defining moment of my entire life, I just knew it. I would understand everything in only a very short matter of time, whether it be seconds, minutes, or hours.

A bright orange Frisbee sailed by my face, I blanched and looked to my right for the owner of the disc. That’s when everything around me melted, and one singular thing became perfectly clear. My hearing faded as I stared in awe at the pure brilliance of beauty and innocence.

Standing about fifteen yards away was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life.

She was about high school age, short, with magnificent brunette hair and large chocolaty brown eyes that I could see clearly even from my distance, a gorgeous figure, and a smooth complexion. I was in shock, but it was that moment that I realized that God had made that girl just for me.

She looked beyond me and laughed at someone I had not seen, revealing perfect white teeth. I swiveled my head and caught sight of a blonde, not nearly as pretty as the other one. She had caught the Frisbee and was now winding up and throwing it back. Even if her friend had not seen me, I knew the blonde had. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. I hurriedly got up and pretended to leave the park, but doubled around to watch again without the knowledge of either one.

I loved the way her lustrous body moved, whether she was throwing, walking or bent double laughing at a joke her friend had just told her. She laughed a lot. I edged closer, keeping my head down in case I was seen, hiding more or less in the bushes and behind large rocks that surrounded the clearing where the girls were throwing their Frisbee. The brunette yelled something out to her friend, and they approached each other, smiling and giggling. Wanting to overhear their conversation I inched closer, straining to hear.

The brunette pulls out her phone and checks the time. “Okay Becky, my dad should be here to take us out on the lake in about five minutes, what should we do until then?” The blonde, Becky, ponders this before replying “I guess we’d better start to head down there now, right Leslie? The walk takes about five minutes.” The brunette, Leslie, agrees, and they begin to make their way down a winding dirt trail to what is presumably the lake. I follow them both from a distance, making sure not to disturb anyone else. Luckily there are not too many people here at the park today. I have God to thank for this. I stopped tracking them when a large, muscular man in a polo shirt pulled up in a yellow yacht and loads both of them onto his boat before driving away, leaving a path of foamy water in his wake.

The angel spoke to me then louder than ever before, and I could feel the heat of her breath as she hissed in my ear. “This girl is yours to keep, but you must obtain her of your own accord. Take whatever measures necessary to make her love you.”

That night I logged onto my facebook and searched for the name ‘Leslie’. The First person that popped up in my immediate area was ‘Leslie Spacey’. My heart began to pound with excitement as I clicked on her name. I sat there, taking it all in. Her profile picture was of her on the dock of the park by the school. The picture had evidently been taken from a boat, as it was a head on shot taken from the water. She was wearing short shorts and a black and white striped T-shirt. She was smiling and absolutely gorgeous.

I looked through all of her photos in that one night. She was a girl who posted a lot to facebook, no doubt about it. I spent hours poring through all of her memories, drinking them in, one by one, letting great amounts of time pass between each one. I friend requested her too, although I didn’t get a reply.

This was the beginning of my obsession with Leslie Spacey. I learned that she went to the park, usually with some friends, every day after school. I began doing the same thing, watching her from a distance, never approaching. On several occasions I was almost spotted, but I always managed to avoid them, if not just barely.

My stalking her reached a new extreme when I tailed her home one late night. I had used facebook to find out about a party that she would be attending. I marveled at how easy everything was. Watching her as she exited the house and got into her car, turning over the engine of my own and pursuing her from a safe distance. She arrived at her house and I scribbled down the address. I then stealthily got out and crept towards her house.

It wasn’t a very big house. Only one story, as a matter of fact, so I could easily look inside through the windows. I watched as she kissed her parents goodnight and made her way to her own room. My feet crunched over the gravel driveway as I gleefully walked over to the window that certainly belonged to Leslie’s room. An idiotic grin was on my face the entire time. I pulled myself up and looked inside her room. She was undressing, her luscious body visible in the lamplight as she tossed aside her tank top and pulled on a nightshirt, she then lay down and read awhile before finally falling asleep.

There were few things as amazing as watching her sleeping. Her breathing was soft, and her chest rose and fell with each breath. I stayed there for a long while, observing her movements as she dozed, before finally going home.

It was also that night when I started having all of these negative thoughts and feelings. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. That voice in the back of your head that keeps saying all these terrible things. But, like it or not, these things are always true.

“Leon, what are you doing with your life? You just watched a teenage girl sleep for literally hours, and you enjoyed it. You’re pathetic. Just where the hell did you get the idea that a girl like Leslie would ever like you? She won’t, your face is simply too fucked up.”

These thoughts swirled around my mind as I looked in the mirror that night, just as I was brushing my teeth.

“Who gives a shit what the angel says? Chances are that you’re hearing voices.”

My brow began to furrow, and anger built up inside of me. The voice persisted.

“And who gives a shit that you’re pissed off anyway? It’s not going to change anything. This girl doesn’t want you; the bitch doesn’t even know you exist. She never will want you.”

My fist came swinging around in a wild uncontrolled rage, smashing the bathroom mirror to pieces. My knuckles are bleeding now and that only makes me angrier, there is another mirror on the door to the bathroom, on the outside. I run out slam it shut, and with one swift kick, I shatter that one too. There are still two more mirrors in the house and I run downstairs, when I find the third mirror in my second bathroom, I destroy it, and I do the same to my fourth mirror that hangs on my refrigerator in the kitchen.

I collapsed on the floor, both hands bleeding, covered in shards of broken mirrors, and I begin to cry, tears streaming down my face. The angel came to me then.

“Leon, I am not a voice in your head. I was sent by god to give you a woman, Leslie Spacey is the one I have chosen. Do whatever you can to obtain her. Remember that Leon, whatever you can.”

Those words echoed in my head over and over again.

“Do whatever you can…”

“Do whatever you can…”

“Do whatever you can…”

So I did, with some help from the angel, of course. She gave me some very specific instructions when I asked if she would assist me.

I waited for two weeks until Leslie came to the park alone. She just did what she usually did, took a walk in the woods. I positioned myself near the end of the trail, my heart beating in my chest, wondering if I could do what I had to, I pulled a plastic bag from my pocket, and waited.

It took only a few short minutes before I heard the sound of feet over rocks and dirt, and I stood behind a thick elm tree, knowing what I had to do.

The action that I took next wasn’t cruel, or wrong. It was an act of love.

She was looking down when I overcame her, and that made it easier. She tried to scream but my arm clamped down hard over her throat, effectively cutting off her air. She kicked, and pummeled me with all her might, but I was far stronger than she was. I forced the plastic bag over her head before using my legs to sweep her off the ground, knocking her down. I then placed my knee on the small of her back and pushed. It didn’t take very long. The inside of the bag was lacquered with a thick layer of chloroform, and eventually, she became still.

She was fairly heavy, but taking her back to her car didn’t prove to become any major struggle. It was dark by now, and everyone else had apparently gone home. Nobody was there to witness my perfect little crime.

As soon as she was home and safely inside my crawl space, I used a Swiss army knife to cut open her throat. When I began to cut, there was less blood than I originally thought there was going to be, it was only when I dragged the blade across her throat that the brilliant red liquid gushed out and sprayed all over my face. I resolved to wear an apron from then on.

What really took the longest in the whole operation was sewing the slit that the knife had made back together. Only then was she absolutely perfect.

For a short amount of time, I was happy. I had my very own woman. I kept her in the bedroom once I was done with her. God she looked so beautiful…

Then she began to rot, and I cried out and asked the angel what to do. My woman was decomposing, I hadn’t even had her for very long and in less than a week or so the flies and maggots would come in and ruin her delicious body…

“It would appear as if I have not chosen correctly,” the angel whispered to me.

“But do not fear I will find you someone else. Leslie was a whore anyway. There are plenty of others. We will have to keep going until we find the woman who does not rot. That is the one that is destined for you; I know this because god told me so, never fear.”

And as the angel said there were more, several more as a matter of fact. Becky was one of them, but she was a bitter disappointment. She decomposed faster than Leslie did.

“We’ll just have to keep on going, never fear, never fear.”

I stop shaving. The stubble on my face has disappeared, and once again my complexion is smooth.

I withdraw the shower curtain. There sits a girl, a redhead like my first love, Rosemary, completely naked, and the stitches in her neck visible. I kneel down and give her a lingering kiss before pulling myself onto her. I take my time, removing my clothes, bit by bit, until I am in the nude as well.

The sex is delightful, but not quite as good as it was last night. She isn’t as tight, which is a sign that she has begun to decompose, I give a heavy sigh as I redress. She is not the one.

I bury her body in my crawl space before going upstairs to pray in front of the massive crucifix. I know god will forgive me of my sins.