Mirror

I sit down on the pier of the lake. I am alone with my thoughts.

I’m a winner now, after all these years of work and loss. I’ve finally won in what I do best.

I look out on the water.

It is so hard to keep working to win. I suffer in my efforts.

                “But winning is so hard to keep doing. So tiring.” I say out loud, “I wish I could just end my suffering.”

                “Wish granted.” says a voice from behind me. Something hits my back. I am being murdered.

White-hot pain.

 I turn. It seems an eternity before I see my murderer.

A mirror.

I see me, yet she isn’t me. A sneer on my face, but its not my face. The face of someone long gone, someone who has come back. Someone I knew almost as well as myself. At least I thought I did.

Numbing pain.

I lived to know who killed me.

Can’t feel my body.

Why? My mind screams to her. I try to scream it, but no words come from my mouth.

The mirror laughed.

Blank.

The mirror rolls me off the pier.

Am I swimming?

Cannot breathe.

Blank.

Darkness descends upon me.

I am no more.

The woman smiled. The smile was almost the same of that to the woman she just killed, but this smile was devious.

                “My friend was right, murder works like a charm, I feel great!” said the woman.

_________________

I walked to my office. It is May 1922 in Sydney, a good year to be alive. Which is more than I can say for my clients, whom are usually either murdered or need protection. I looked at myself as I walked past a mirror. A slim figure with slightly tanned skin dressed in a pale green suit. My dark hair was cut in a fashionable cap, immaculate under the matching pale green hat I donned. Strange green eyes peered back at me from under the fringe. Perfect as always. Not bad for someone that’s thirty-two. I smiled at my reflection, before I walked through the door saying ‘Sarah Rice, Private Detective’, into my office.

“Sarah!” my twenty year-old secretary, Henrietta Dubois called to me when I walked in, “You won’t believe this! Lisel Fisher, you know the singer?” who didn’t, the best singer at the harbour-side club called ‘The Cube’ one of the hippest places of late.  “She just called about a case for you!” she squealed, jumping up and down, which definitely is not good when your blue dress is knee length. Her curly tan hair bounced about her pale face and her blue eyes sparkled. “She wants to meet you at The Cube today, she said to tell the bouncer outside who you are and he would take you to see her. Can I come to talk to her too? Oh, please, oh please, oh please?” she gave me her puppy-dog face.

“ Hmm.” I found it hard to say ‘no’ to it. She looks like such a cute little girl when she does that.

“It would be very good experience for me.” Enri, as I called her, fancied often about being a private detective like me, though she loves working here.

“I’m sorry Enri, but I’m going to have to say no,” I said. She was visibly disappointed, “but you can have dinner with me at The Cube, my treat.” She smiled.

“That would be great!” she exclaimed, she shoved my mail into my hands and sat back down at her desk, humming one of the songs that Lisel often sang. I looked at the mail as I closed the door of my private office. There were two bills, a letter from my last client, whom I had assisted by catching his stalker, and another letter that had no addresser on the envelope. I opened the letter from my previous client. He thanked me for stopping his stalker, and the cheque for my assistance was in the envelope. I opened the other letter. It had three words printed onto the piece of paper. ‘I did it’. I dropped it as if it was a coal and started grinning. Then I picked it up again and ripped it up before I threw it into the bin. I went to my window and opened it. I looked out side, there were people, but these people seemed normal. The building across from this one was a five-storey building. The one I was in was seven-storeys. There would be no way anyone could see from that building into my window. Nothing seemed to be out of place, ‘I should go see Lisel now.’ I thought. I pulled open my door.

“I’m going out, Enri!” I said to her as I strode out of the office doors. She looked surprised.

“But you just got here!” she called after me. I didn’t care; all I knew was that I had to see Lisel. Now.

_________________

I walked out of the building to the warm autumn weather of Sydney; a few cars buzzed by and startled the “parked” horses that were on the side of the road. I smiled. Things couldn’t be much better a cool wind whispered around my determined being. A man walked by me and winked at me. Not amused, I raised my eyebrow at him in a superior way; he looked away and hurried to where he was going. I loved feeling superior to many of the people around me. It always gives a satisfying feeling. I walked towards the harbour, whistling on my way there.

Ten minutes later I arrived at The Cube, and walked up to one of the bouncers, Joe. I’m more familiar with him.

                “Hey, Joe, how is business?” I said in a casual tone of voice. He smiles at me as he lets in another customer.

                “It’s been fine lately.” He didn’t seem to know about Lisel wanting to talk to me, so I decided to drop some subtle hints so that he didn’t look like a fool.

                “How has Ms. Fisher been doing lately?” I asked him. He looked bemused.

                “Fine.” He let in another customer. There is a perfectly good reason that a man would work as a bouncer when there was work at safer places. It is because they don’t have enough brains to do such jobs. Personally, I don’t think any men have enough brains to work at any office job. Unfortunately the government has yet to agree with me, but that is their problem. Mine is to get Joe to let me see Lisel.

                “Is she meeting anyone tonight?” I ask him. He thinks about it. Hard. Then his faces lights up as he remembers.

                “Oh, yes! Of course.” He lets me into the club. “Follow me please.” I followed him through the club and to the back. “She’s waiting in there for you Miss.” He smiles and returns to his post at the doors. I knock on the door that he had led me to.

                “Come in.” comes a voice from inside. I opened the door and see Ms. Fisher sitting at her dressing table. On the table were two glasses and a bottle of champagne. She smiles up at me and I smile back.

                “I heard that you did it, Lisel.” I say to her casually. She laughed maliciously.

                “Yes I did, Sarah.” she replies triumphantly, I laugh in the same way she did a moment before. She indicated the seat next to her and I sat down in it as she poured us some champagne. “I finally murdered my sister. That fame-snatching witch! The one who always took credit for my songs.” she grinned insanely.

                “How did you do it Marie?” I asked her. She leans closer to whisper it to me.

                “I called her, invited her to come to my house for dinner. After dinner, we were standing before the huge fireplace in my living room and we began the argument about the songs I wrote,” she paused and took a breath before going on, “then I pushed her into the fire and locked in the grate. When she had all burned down, I took her clothes and car and I drove to her home.” She smiled as if that was one of her sweet childhood memories. “And here I am!” she finished off. We started giggling like schoolgirls. “Now, tell me about how you did it, Amy!” she squealed.

                “It’s not as exciting as yours is.” I said in an off hand kind of way. “I stabbed her in the back on the lake pier and then pushed her off.” Again we giggled like schoolgirls. We looked into her dresser mirror. We both could see the image of our dead sisters. I took up my champagne glass. “You were right, murder works like a charm, I feel great!” we laughed hysterically. “To the murder of twins!” I raised my glass. Marie grinned.

                “To the murder of mirror images!” she replied. We raised our glasses to the mirror and drank. Now we were the winners.