9/26/14

Heteronymy
By Sommer Nectarhoff


“And yet again, another day.”

“Undeniable, and agreed—we’ve had enough.”

We looked around the empty room. There was nothing but a bed in the corner with a briefcase on top of it, a door that led to the stairwell, and a glass door that led to the balcony. And the sink and the mirror.

We saw our face in the mirror. It was old and ugly.

We sighed and turned away to walk over and sit on the bed. We unbuttoned and untucked our shirt and took it off before setting it down on the bed.

“Ah, at last.”

We sighed again and stood up before flashing a smile back at ourselves in the mirror.

We opened the glass door and went outside and stood on the balcony. The street was far below.

“Yes, we have had enough.”

We took a knife from our pocket and brought it up to our throat. We smiled and began to cut the skin away while making sure to lean forward over the railing to keep the blood from staining our pants. It took a few minutes to work all the way from chin to ears to forehead, but eventually we unfastened the skin. We set the knife on the ground and brought our hands up to our face before taking a deep breath.

We pried off our face.

I looked at the formless skin I held in my hand.

“Goodbye,” I said.

I dropped the face off into the air and watched as it fell down to the ground, fluttering sickly in the wind all the while. I saw it splash down on the concrete but it was too far away to hear anything.

I turned around and walked over to the sink. I dipped my face into the basin and turned on the hot water. I rubbed the blood away and watched the red water swirl down the drain.

Then I took a cloth and dried myself off before walking over to the bed. I slipped on the shirt and buttoned it up before tucking it in. I walked back out onto the balcony and looked down to the ground. A cluster of people had surrounded the small red pile of what was once face.

I turned and went back to the bed and took up the briefcase.

On my way out of the room I looked into the mirror and smiled at the beautiful young smile that smiled back at me.

“Until another day.”

I left the room and closed the door.


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Sommer Nectarhoff is a twenty-two year old writer from Chicago. He is the author of “22”.