When she kissed the surface was hard and silvery and did not ripple like it had for Narcissus. She looked identical to her, and she looked at her, square and central. Same pale white skin, dark curly hair, hard, grainy features. There, her, her sister. Her mirror sister. She liked this perfection. Satisfied, she kissed her and went.

She went out of her house where the leaves blew fluttering in the sunlight. The air had been washed by rain and was shimmery and clear, and the world swam in reflected images. The toes of her sandals disturbed the pools of tree tears with ripples, and this unsettled her. She did not like to disturb things.

Her disturbance pushed up a wisp of air, which pushed up and quivered the leaves

And ruffled the hair of her sister.

But she did not mind. It settled breezy back into place.

She boarded a train—at the same time she got on a train, bound for different places. Trains were odd because they swept you away while you were still standing motionless.

“We apologise for the delay. There has been an unexpected incident on the line. A man has committed suicide.”
She knew who he was. She could see his blood loud and cruel all over the rails and she knew who he was. But she could not speak, she could not say. The passengers around her tensed their bodies so they stood like sinewy pillars.

“We apologise for the delay. There has been an unexpected incident on the line. A man has committed suicide”
She grinned silently as she heard the announcement from the station. She viewed the scene from her railway bridge battlement. The breeze ruffled her hair. Passengers teetered at the edge of the platform, jostling shock between them. A poisonous purple-grey cloud more painful than train smoke twisted its prehensile fingers in the air. And there he was below, mangled and red, her dear bloodstained tattoo.

She said she did not like to disturb things. Except this.

Eventually the train went on. She winced as they passed the spot.

She went away and dissolved into the world before the authorities could catch her diffusion. She didn’t even leave ripples in the puddles.

The pillars move from their gentle rocking sleep once the jolt comes. They lope out between the thin, crisp portal and waddle away in clumsy lines.

All she can see are the lines of correction, crisp and mathematical. The beauty of the equation, x2+y2=r2, rippling a perfect circle in the air.

The circle pulls her to that round tower encased in glass which she climbs until she is on level with the cloud.

She can sit here for hours. She stares at her from across another floor, while she throws her thoughts to the sky.

She fascinates her.

She is plotting the clouds on a graph. She is plotting the train network.

So quiet, she thinks. Her side of the mirror is silent and silvery.

See.

She does not like to disturb things, and I am mathematically designed, proportioned. This perfection satisfies me.

This is what she thinks.

And her thoughts are all gone to the air so she floats light to her feet and drifts down the stairs like a ballet dancer.

The circle (perfectly rippling the air, the beauty of the equation x2+y2=r2) shrinks and pulls her back. The tower disappears from her life as if it was a plant sprung from the soil.

She boards the train. She does too. This time they are going to the same place. They sit opposite each other, and neither says a word. She looks at her, square and central, same pale white skin, dark curly hair, hard, grainy features. Expressionless. Skin cool as alabaster. Neither of them sees.

The mirror is too strong.

When she unlocked her door the house was undisturbed. This satisfied her. After all, she did not like to disturb things.

She shut the front door gently and a delicate gust of air ruffled the hair of her sister, and she didn’t mind.

She sat down at the stool, and repeated that old ritual.

Every evening the mirror kissed her. The mirror was her sister.