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The Fun House Mirror's Origins Are Obscure & Not Easily Researched

Approximately 3800 wds.

Short Story: Michael Lee Smith

        Burton Rolley thought he was dead, but he knew he was a dwarf.  It was his new-found friend, Dweezie, however, who caused him to question both conjecture and fact.
 

         To Burton, Burton ha always been a dwarf – infant dwarf Burton, uncontrolled in the kicking of fat, stubby, arms and legs (he imagined); prepubescent dwarf Burton, shy and clumsy; teen dwarf Burton, more shy, less clumsy, and so on – even though lately he’d been told otherwise.  He wanted to believe Dweezie of course, but when Burton stared into the mirror, a very old, shriveled dwarf stared back at him. Irrefutable evidence.

         Death was another deal.  Because he’d long ago become convinced by the dwarf in the mirror, and because it had come calling more recently, the death dilemma was a far more troubling issue.  Also, there was its very nature -- death. And it kept nagging Burton, and well it should; it isn’t often one brushes against death so closely that one smells Jack Daniels on its breath. And he had, brushed and smelled.  Tonight as he stood at the crowded intersection, the very intersection where three nights ago he’d initially been forced to entertain the question of his death, he stood and entertained it once more.  This time the entertainment was, to Burton, of the type in which one is held at gun point and ordered to: “Dance!” 

         Beyond that, he was going to have to ride the bus.  The Bus.  The same bus that a small but insistent voice in his head kept reporting had flattened him at this same intersection three sleepless nights ago.  Feeling the Armadillo roll over in his stomach, Burton swallowed.  Fished in his pocket, dislodged two Rolaids from the roll and chewed them.

         That night, Tuesday, was it? – - the neon light's reflection on the wet pavement. That bus.  Careening toward him as he stood frozen in the middle of the busy intersection, feeling the presence of the onlookers on the sidewalk, their awed, silent reverence of what was about to occur.  Weakness in his knees, that sudden inexplicable feeling that he’d emptied his bladder. And the details, still vivid – everything in slow motion – the look of terror on the bus driver’s face through the approaching windshield, his knuckles gripping the steering wheel, even the rain on the windshield; if Burton closed his eyes, he could still see the pattern as it came closer, and hear the wipers’ “swish, swish,” like the heartbeat of something alive.

         Miraculously, the bus had stopped.  Or he guessed it had stopped. When he’d regained his senses, he was standing on the opposite corner, the corner he’d been aimed at before entering the intersection.  But the bus was still stopped and a crowd was forming in front of it.  A woman screamed. At that, Burton had turned and fled. 

         Burton spoke, unconsciously.  “She didn’t scream . . . “

         “Hey, old dude, what you mumblin’ ‘bout?”  Voice from a guy leaning against a NO PARKING sign.  Guy with his black baseball cap turned backwards.  One front tooth missing.  Grinning.

         Burton straightened his tie.  Said to himself silently, “When in doubt, sing loud."

         He shook his head; that would be something Dweezie would say, a reply to a quote he might recite.  Mocking him.

         “When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.’”   That’s what he’d meant to say.  A quote from Mark Twain, one of his favorite authors.

         The bus came; Burton heard its ominous approach from behind him. The memory, and the accompanying willies, were especially strong when he was riding the bus.  But it was either that, or walk.  And walking made his back hurt; dwarfs were prone to back problems.  Especially old ones.

         Burton was able to tune out the surroundings while on the bus; he did that regularly anyway, what with the veiled snickers, the averted eyes, the barely audible remarks about his size.  He would evaporate into a cool blue cloud and recall various quotes, maybe one from the night before; that was something he always did immediately before retiring – he’d linger over Bartlett’s Quotations, or one of his many other books of quotes, nursing a glass of warm beer.

         “My own thoughts,’” Burton Rolley said to himself.  “Are my companions; my designs and labors.  And aspirations are my only friends.’”  Then, silently to his black-capped friend sitting three rows ahead, “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”

         He thought of Dweezie’s possible replies.  “Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate.’”  Or, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’”  

         Burton got off at his stop and walked the short distance to his apartment building.

         On the stairway he heard his dog barking. “Daddy’s home, Zippy!” But before he was able to reach the door Dweezie opened hers.

         “Hey, Burton.”

         Few people possessed a voice that matched their physique, but Dweezie did: high, squeaky, shrill.  Hey, Burton had sounded like a greeting squeezed out of a rubber toy – one of the ones Zippy played with.

         “Hello, Dweezie,” Burton said, somewhat comforted by her appearance.  The last few days he’d felt (only realizing it now) comforted by customary appearances; he took it as another sign that he really wasn’t dead.  Things that should be in his life, were.  Dweezie, with the accompaniment of her squeak, left no doubt of her existence.  Take that, little insistent voice! 

         Burton had been seeking her counsel concerning his problem anyway.  Last night, after the warm beer and Bartlett’s proved ineffective, late into the night, he’d found himself out in the hallway, standing in front of Dweezie’s doorway, bathed in sweaty reluctance, wearing his child-sized robe, standing on bare, bunioned feet, rapping softly.

         Unusual music had wafted back at him through the cracks around the door.  Zippy, in his arms, cocked her little head and whined.  Beyond the music, there was a distinctive creaking and groaning that at first Burton had mistaken for percussion, albeit percussion of slow, flowing, even rhythm.  Then, underfoot he noted, the floorboards were moving. The hallway undulating.  That’s when he realized Dweezie was dancing.  After a long moment’s consideration, he’d confided to Zippy, “She’s dancing to ledge music.”  Zippy’s ears had perked up.

         “Burton, your face is on wrong.” Dweezie’s voice pulled him back from recollections of last night.   Proverbial fingernails across proverbial chalkboard.

         “Pardon?”

         She was squinting at him, still standing in her doorway.  “Something wrong?”

         Burton opened the door to his apartment and Zippy flashed past him, out into the hallway, a blur of wagging contortions – yapping, paws tap-dancing on ancient varnish.  Zippy darted to Dweezie and jumped on her leg.  Dweezie picked her up.  Began petting her.

         He’d welcomed Zippy’s distraction, what with Dweezie’s remark and question, both put forth so point blank.  To detour her, he wanted to say, “I knocked last night.  Heard you dancing.”  He knew, though, it was an intimate ceremony, just between her and the music, and, he imagined, candles, maybe a little wine.  Anti-ledge ingredients.  But maybe he didn’t want her to detour.  “Would you like a beer, Dweezie?”

         She looked down from petting Zippy.  “An invitation?”

         She acted surprised, as if the invitation were the first, as if sharing a beer in the evenings wasn’t a fairly regular occurrence with them these last few weeks.   Burton’s eyes went to hers, then moved quickly to Zippy, cradled in her thin arms.  They stayed, fidgeting there until he realized she might think he was staring at her bosom.   Had she had one.

         It seemed like a long time before Dweezie said, “Yes.  I’ll have a beer, Burton.”

         Burton didn’t know what else to say except the same thing he’d said to her at their first meeting, “I drink mine warm.”

         “No, I’d rather have it cold,” Dweezie said through the open doorway, seated at the table in the adjacent breakfast nook.  “If you’ve got a cold one.” 

Burton went through the ritual, standing at the counter a moment, then going to the refrigerator, rising on tip toes, and taking out an ice tray.  

         “Iced beer?” Dweezie feigned surprise when he gave her hers.   

         “I don’t refrigerate it.”  

         “I thought maybe it was trendy,” Dweezie said.

         Burton cleared his throat.  Thought about winking at her but didn’t; the subject at hand was too serious.

         A moment of silence roared by; Burton realized that silence always roars by when preceding an important question. 

         Zippy jumped into Dweezie’s lap and settled herself.  Another silence came.  Burton cleared his throat again.  Dweezie took a small sip of her iced beer and looked expectantly at him.

         Burton almost cleared his throat again, then realized what he was doing and stopped himself.  Took a sip of beer instead, and dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

         “It’s not bad,” Dweezie said, nodding toward the beer.  “Maybe we could start a new trend.” 

         Burton nodded absently. 

         “You do Tarot cards and some of that kind of thing,” Burton said suddenly.

         From across the table, Dweezie’s eyebrows rose.  “Tarot?  No I don’t believe—“

         “I mean,” Burton interrupted,  “you’re familiar with . . . other aspects of . . . life.  That’s not the word I’m looking for, though.”  He looked at her for help.

         “Well, yeah,” Dweezie said.  “I try to keep an open mind.”

         Burton nodded, took another sip of warm beer and said, “Something happened the other night, Dweezie.  To me.”   He paused.  “Do you think it’s possible to . . . die, and never know that you’re dead?  I mean, you don’t know you’re dead, you just go on living through some kind of scenario of what you imagined your life would be?  Of course you’re living it another dimension, one that only you are aware of.”

         Dweezie was silent a moment.  “Hmmm.  I’ve never thought of it like that.”  She looked away, rubbing Zippy’s ear between her thumb and index finger.   “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

         “What do you believe?”

         She was still looking off into the distance, toward the window.  “I believe we’re not supposed to know.”

         “Not supposed to know?”  To know is nothing.  To imagine is everything, a quote from . . . well, he couldn’t recall.
 

         Now she turned to him.  “We’re not supposed to know what happens when we die.  The Supreme Being, or whatever created all of this, wants that to remain a mystery, at least in this stage of our evolution.  I think it’s very presumptuous of us to claim to know.  The ones who claim to know.”

         “I think I was run over by a bus.  Last week.”

         She was staring at him, a look that made him uncomfortable.  She said: “But you think you’re a dwarf, too.”

         Burton sighed, ready to go find the mirror if necessary.  Resigned to proving it to her.

         “I’m not making fun of you, Burton, I just want to point out . . . a possible error in judgment.  If anyone deserved a skewed self-image,  it would be me.  If you knew how many diets I’ve attempted, how many, well . . .   And you’re perfectly normal.”

         Burton sat, pondering the fact that Dweezie couldn’t weigh an ounce more than eighty-five pounds.  Pondering why he would seek her council in a matter such as this.  Pondering too, why she would be lying to him like this, flattering him.  And it dawned on him slowly, as totally foreign realizations often do, that she might like him.  Might be attracted to him in a . . . romantic way.  Somehow, he felt a little bit seduced.  No.  Not possible.  He was far too old, far too – small – gnarled and small.  Maybe she just wanted him to return the favor; that, it seemed, was consistent with human behavior; Burton often felt puzzled by human behavior, as if he were an alien, placed on earth and forced to practice sort of a trial-and-error method of getting along.

         “What if I told you,” he said.  “that I think you look perfectly . . .thin?”

         Dweezie stirred an ice cube with her finger. “That would be like the third strike, Burton.  First you think you’re a dwarf,  then you think you’re dead, and now you think I’m skinny.”

         “Okay, what if I said that size has little bearing on . . . attractiveness?”

         “I’d feel like you were being polite to your fat neighbor.”

         “But you’re not fat, and you’re just being polite to your elderly dwarf neighbor.”

         Now Dweezie sighed.  Her emaciated chest rattled; Zippy`s eyes opened in response.

         Dweezie was being polite.  To rid her of the drudgery, Burton said, “You don’t think I was run over by the bus?”

         “Well, that would mean that I occupy the same dimension as you. And I don’t remember any careening buses, any plunging airplanes . . . or more appropriate to me and Mama Cass, any half-eaten ham sandwiches.

         “The relevant thing, Burton, is, do you feel alive?  The reason I don’t think we should contemplate an afterlife, is that we should squeeze the most from the pre-afterlife.  That eats up a big fat chunk of time.”

         “Feel alive?”

         “Every morning,” Dweezie said, “or at least every morning I’ve been awake to notice, you leave for work precisely between seven-twenty-seven and seven-thirty.  What’s your job?”  She waved her hand, dismissing a reply.  “I don’t know why I’ve never asked, but let me guess – you close the eyes on dead sardines as they hum down the assembly line.”

        “I do not!  I—“  He paused.  “I work at a publishing house.  Have for the last thirty-four years.”

         “Doing what?”

         “I read the manuscripts that come in.”

         That stopped her. 

         “Hmmm,” she said, then took another drink of the beer.  The ice clinked together when she set down the glass.  She was staring at something on the table.  “Look at this, Burton.”  She motioned toward the tabletop.  “Look at these napkins.”

         Burton looked, but didn’t see anything wrong.

         “They’re . . . like, geometrically correct.  Looks like you used a tape measure.”   She reached out and moved one.  Turned it sideways.  Then she looked up as if challenging him.

         “Look at this apartment.   If I slaved the next three years I could never get my apartment this organized.”

         Burton fought the urge to lean forward and rearrange the napkin.
“Your spices are probably in alphabetical order, no . . . in your case, your books.   You probably crucify any manuscript that comes in with a misspelling, or a comma in the wrong place.”

         “That’s my job.”  It came out sounding more defensive than he would have liked.

         Dweezie shook her head woefully.  “This little dog is the probably the only thing in your life that you don’t fully control.  The only thing that’s the least bit spontaneous. I’m not making fun of you, Burton, but you asked.”

         His books were in alphabetical order, but how else would one . . . and what did that have to do with being dead?   

         He said, “You listen to ledge music.”  After a silence he cleared his throat again; he hadn’t meant to say it.  “You’re not organized but your life is—“

         “Said the dead dwarf,” Dweezie interrupted, rolling her eyes.  Then her expression changed.  “What the hell’s ledge music?”

         Burton threw up his hands.  “People who are sad.  Music for people who are sad and thinking of . . . “

         “I don’t have a problem admitting I’m sad.  I’ll tell anyone.”

         Burton didn’t know what to say.

         “You look surprised.”

         “Anyone?”

         Dweezie took a drink of her iced beer.  “Sure, what the hell?  Why keep it a secret.  I’m lonely.  I’m a grown woman, human being, living by herself and it gets .  . . well, sometimes I find it hard to keep myself entertained.”

         Dweezie looked like she wanted to add something else so Burton waited.  He didn’t know what to say, anyway.   

         “And why shouldn’t I tell people?  What’s the worse they can do to me?  I’ll tell you.  They can ignore me.  And they do that anyway – fat crazy chick, listening to primal drumbeats . . .  Thinking I read Tarot Cards!”

         “But you find ways not to go out onto the ledge.”

         “I’ve been out on the ledge a couple of times,” Dweezie admitted, then was silent.  Again, she looked like she had something else to say.  Burton realized she was waiting on him to say something, she was
wanting an answer to some unasked question.  Him?  Had he ever been out there?

         He shook his head. 

         Dweezie shook her head in response, her eyebrows raised slightly.  “Liar,” she said.  “Boy, dead dwarfs can sure tell whoppers.”

         Burton continued shaking his head.

         Dweezie grinned.  “How would you know what ledge music is then?”

         “Well . . .”

         Dweezie was still grinning, rubbing Zippy’s ear between her fingers.  She looked like she’d just heard a delightful secret.   Suddenly she leaned forward and moved another napkin. 

         “Oh, my,” she said.

         Burton wanted to tell her to leave.   

         “Let’s go do something, Burton,” Dweezie said, her eyes suddenly alight.  “Let’s go do something new.  Spontaneous.  Something we’d never do on our own.”

         He was shaking his head again.  

         “I don’t know,” she said, mistaking his head shaking as a sign of confusion.  “Let’s just get up, go out the door, hit the sidewalk, start moving and see what happens.  No plan.”  She took a breath.  “Let’s just do it.”

         “No!”

         Zippy opened an eye and looked across the table at him. 

         “Oh, I see,” Dweezie said, taking another drink of her iced beer.  She patted Zippy once before she leaned forward and put her on the floor.  Then she stood.  After another long moment she said, “I think the disadvantages of being seen with a fat woman are far outweighed by the advantages of . . . living.”

         “But you’re not . . . “ She was at the door, then through it before Burton could finish his reply.

         Zippy had followed her until Dweezie closed the door.  Zippy sniffed at it once.  She turned around and looked at Burton.

         A feeling of guilt accompanied each observation of the rearranged, righted napkins.  Zippy sat on the carpet in front of the sofa casting forlorn glances at the door, then at Burton. 

         "I didn't tell her to leave," Burton said, throwing up his hands. 

         Zippy broke eye contact.  Looked at the floor.

         "I don't care that she's skinny.  I mean, that she's skinny and thinks she's overweight."

         Burton took a sip from his second beer.   He noted the glass in his hand. "She's making me an alcoholic, too.  Turning my dog against me and making me alcoholic.  And I'm dead to boot.  How do you like that, Zippy?  How do you like them apples?"

         In the dream, he was still dead.   Still a dead old dwarf . . . but Dweezie kept coming over for an iced beer.  He kept the napkins straight, the books alphabetized, kept going to work, riding the bus that had killed him.

         But Dweezie kept coming over, sipping iced-beer, telling him, implying that he wasn't dead, wasn't a dwarf, and that maybe, just maybe, the two of them had something going.  It was enough to drive someone crazy!

         The next afternoon, sneaking past Dweezie's doorway with his fingers tightly clamped over Zippy's muzzle, Burton heard himself mumble under his breath,"'There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.'"  Another quote from somewhere. "Samuel Butler," he whispered to Zippy.

         Yes, the entrances and exits were the most difficult -- not looking up at her window when he took Zippy out into the court yard to go to the bathroom.  But Zippy continued to do so, staring wistfully up at the window.

         "Quit it," Burton ordered her.  "Just quit it."

         What a crazyman he was becoming.  But it occurred to him: Crazyman sure felt better than Deadman.

         "You know," Dweezie's reflection said to her in the mirror, "you're going to have to report him dead soon."

         Dweezie sighed, a monstrous one.  Then, coincidentally, or maybe not so coincidentally, she said the same thing to her reflection that Burton
had said to Zippy, "Quit it.  Just quit it."

         Dweezie retreated to the kitchen where she leaned against the table and  stared through the window at a sky that resembled lumpy oatmeal.
Her reflection remained at the mirror of course, but its voice had accompanied Dweezie, and now it said:

         "He's going to start smelling soon.  I mean, his body is."  Then, after a pause, "And Zippy doesn't need to be there.  You've got to do something with his dog."

"I think I'll keep her." Dweezie cleared her throat.  "I'll have to put up a deposit .  .  . but I think I will."  Her voice sounded tired to her, as if it had been dragged around behind a car or something.

         "A companion would be good for you," the voice of her reflection, which was no longer a reflection, said.  "Anyone who befriends' a little sawed-off geek like that, well .  .  . they need companionship of some sort."

         "You're so cruel," Dweezie said in her tired voice.  "To me, and to him."
         "Real life is that way, kiddo.  But it doesn't take away what you've tried to do .  .  . the good stuff, regardless of your motivations."

         "I believe he thinks he's dead.  Rather, that he thinks he's alive,  but thinks he's dead.  It's possible that he's still living, I mean, in his own mind."

         "Of course it's possible, and if it is, then it won't matter what happens to his body.  You not going over there, talking to it, telling it it's some big strapping, gorgeous hunk.  Acting as if it were alive isn't going to make one bit of difference.  His mind, or his soul, or whatever it is that thinks it's still alive, will keep on thinking that."

         "You're not sure of that."

         "Well, the body is going to deteriorate.  We do know that.  It's all been real sweet of you to try and keep an old dead man .  .  . alive, but there's only so much you can do."

         After a long silence, Dweezie sighed another monstrous sigh.  She turned and looked at the phone hanging on the wall above the counter.  She would have to call.  And soon.

         "What troubles you the most," the voice said.  "Beyond losing your own little fantasy payoff in this, is your own mortality.  Like who's going to keep you alive .  . .  Who's going to come and tell Dweezie she's a dazzling model?"

         Dweezie shook her head.  "I never told him he was dazzling." 

         "Normal would have been dazzling to him.  And well, it will be me that tells you, of course.  Only .  .  . well, don't hope for any of that "model" crap.  What I'll tell you .  .  . remind you of, is .  .  . that you're a big gal with a big heart.  Stuff like that.   Real stuff."

         "Who needs reality?" Dweezie said.  "When you can go have iced beer."

         The owner of the voice, she imagined, her image, gave her a stern look.  She knew what the look was in reference to:  one thing from her imagined conversation with Burton, the thought she clung to.

         "Size has little bearing on attractiveness," the other voice in the room said in an exasperated, mocking tone, reading her thoughts and "Burton's" words.  Then added, "To some people.

         "The phone," the voice said in a tone of finality. 

         "But I've got to go say goodbye."  

         "You think that's wise?"

         Dweezie considered it.  "If what you say is true, he doesn't know, or won't know, so it won't matter.  It's for me, anyway, not him."

         "Okay," the voice said,  "Just checking."

         At the door Dweezie turned around.  "I guess I'll  bring Zippy back with me."

         The voice, which she imagined was still in the kitchen, said,  "Yeah, good idea.  And Dweezie .  .  . just one beer."

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