Mirror (8): Pale Airman.

close to the aperture, creative writing, memory, mirror, non-fiction, photography, Short fiction, Short story, Uncategorized

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8      [photocopy of a snapshot]

I cut Lillian’s hair every twelfth week, dry it every sixth. It grows. I cut it. I dry it. It has become grey by increments; city pigeon to autumn noon, fading print to cigarette ash. Each accretion of tone slowly highlighting further her pink brittle cheeks, the pools of her eyes. She wears it to her shoulder blades, without layers. She drops a parting in on the left. She favours the front edge, from collarbone to breastbone, softened. In summer she arrives like the girl she still fancies herself sometimes to be, with it gathered in a bun and stuck with a pencil. In winter she leaves with it beneath a tweed scarf like the Queen. She likes it smoothed out with a large round bristle brush. It takes time, but a soothing rhythm can be found within the arid blast of air and the long drawn downstrokes of the brush, the finger twirls of hair in to and out of loose knots and, of course, within the trill of her birdlike voice.

She told me more than once that I reminded her of her first lover, a youth named Stewart who, shortly after they had met, plummeted from a 1940s sky in a burning fighter plane somewhere off the coast of Dover in a dogfight. One day she brought in a photocopy of a snapshot of a young and pale airman, his RAF cap sat at a jaunty angle. I felt the heat and the sickening sensation of falling.

I have lost count of the times that confused eyes have been drawn toward this photocopy of a snapshot in the mirror, and the question asked, is that you?

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28 thoughts on “Mirror (8): Pale Airman.”

      1. Maybe, I am very attached to a certain 1919 building in DTLA it feels as familiar as my favorite sweater kinda creepy, but satisfying…who knows maybe I was a riveter or newspaper secretary or burlesque dancer lol yeah right lol lol

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  4. For some reason it’s interesting to imagine you cutting hair, Nick. Love so many elements of this piece, the changing grays, the intimacy, the Queen in a bed scarf, the mirror mirroring a lost flyer, all of it I suppose.

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      1. Aw thank you Nick. It’s a project I haven’t sat down and looked at in a while, I think about her a lot though! She’s still there and should hopefully appear again somewhat soon.

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