<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mirror Images<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the seventh time that day, a metro train left a station just as Ian stepped onto a platform; he hissed: \u201cJeesuzzzz!\u00a0 Again!\u201d<\/p>\n The next wasn\u2019t coming for ten minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cTen bloody minutes.\u00a0 Jeesuzzzz!\u201d<\/p>\n Waiting produces rewarding observation.\u00a0 But Ian just wanted to observe his bed.<\/p>\n He sat down beside two women who had long hair and were covered in jewellery.\u00a0 The women\u2019s watchbands\u2019 colours matched the colours of their watches\u2019 faces.\u00a0 Perfume enveloped them, like atmospheres engulfing self-contained worlds.\u00a0 Ian was still thinking: Ten bloody minutes!<\/p>\n The crystals in the women\u2019s shoes glittered with pointless beauty.\u00a0 It was pointless because it was just surface.\u00a0 But surface was profound for some.<\/p>\n One said: \u201cThere\u2019s loads of gas.\u201d<\/p>\n The other women\u2019s agitated distance was so profound that it looked permanent.\u00a0 Because her dread was vivid against the other one\u2019s thrilled self-absorption, Ian stopped thinking about wasted time.\u00a0 He started listening.<\/p>\n The first woman continued: \u201cDavid\u2019s so happy that it\u2019s a boy.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy either way.\u201d<\/p>\n The other one\u2019s not even listening, Ian thought.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re calling him Michael,\u201d the first woman continued, \u201cafter David\u2019s father who\u2019s helped us so much.\u201d<\/p>\n The talker\u2019s delighted enthusiasm plastered the other woman\u2019s face with perturbed tedium.<\/p>\n She\u2019s so uninterested in listening, Ian thought, that she\u2019s not even pretending to listen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d tried for a while as well,\u201d the first said.\u00a0 \u201cThen it happened; it\u2019s been wonderful ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n The other woman\u2019s deadpan face suggested that anything had to be more interesting than this.<\/p>\n She thinks the pregnant one won\u2019t notice that she\u2019s bored.\u00a0 And she\u2019s right, Ian thought.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll probably have,\u201d the pregnant woman continued, \u201cblue eyes, like our mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n The other woman\u2019s face looked stretched.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid wants him to look like me,\u201d the pregnant woman added, smiling.<\/p>\n The silent woman\u2019s face exuded a pain that was consistent and unchanging, like set concrete.<\/p>\n \u201cOur families are so happy,\u201d the pregnant woman said.\u00a0 \u201cThey can\u2019t wait and neither can we.\u201d<\/p>\n The talker\u2019s blue eyes sparkled in her facial flame of contentment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an achievement, Ian thought, to feel greatness without having achieved anything.<\/p>\n The bored woman believed that she had had pregnancies infinitely more important than this pregnancy.<\/p>\n With regretful casualness, Anne-Marie, the pregnant woman, fired a question as the train arrived, Rosemary, the bored one, saying: \u201cA special bus picks them up.\u00a0 Most parents have to take their children to school.\u201d<\/p>\n Her eyes now glistened.\u00a0 Ian\u2019s curiosity belittled his previous anger.<\/p>\n Anne-Marie\u2019s face assumed the distance that had evaporated from Rosemary\u2019s when the question had been asked.<\/p>\n Never ask these women questions, Anne-Marie thought.\u00a0 Never!<\/p>\n \u201cThat must save a lot of time?\u201d she asked, contradicting herself.<\/p>\n Only her lips moved on her now bored face.<\/p>\n If a man looks bored, Ian thought, people say: Men don\u2019t listen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great,\u201d Rosemary replied. \u00a0\u201cI can get to work earlier so I can leave earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n Anne-Marie studied her reflection in a facing window in the carriage they had entered, Rosemary\u2019s ebullient hands resembling drops flying around on a hot stove.\u00a0 Ian faced them on the other side of the carriage.<\/p>\n \u201cI can spend more time with the kids,\u201d Rosemary said.<\/p>\n Anne-Marie\u2019s face imitated Rosemary\u2019s previous sour mould of irked uneasiness.<\/p>\n Rosemary, having had two pregnancies, wasn\u2019t interested in a third: pregnancy\u2019s once riveting appeal as a subject had disappeared because she wasn\u2019t going to get pregnant again.<\/p>\n Now it was about raising children.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting home earlier,\u201d she continued, \u201cmeans I spend longer helping the kids with their homework.\u201d<\/p>\n Anne-Marie\u2019s asides created false impressions of interest to keep Rosemary occupied while she \u2013 Anne-Marie \u2013 studied herself, imagining the adoration that David was about to give her.<\/p>\n It\u2019s wonderful how he strokes my stomach while he kisses me, she thought, Rosemary saying: \u201cBecause of this they\u2019ve improved at school.\u201d<\/p>\n Anne-Marie heard Rosemary stop so she asked: \u201cAre they improving at school then?\u201d<\/p>\n Ian covered his smile with a hand.<\/p>\n Lucky I missed that train, he thought.<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kim Farleigh<\/strong> has worked for aid agencies in three conflicts: Kosovo, Iraq and Palestine. He takes risks to get the experience required for writing. 87 of his stories have been accepted by 73 different magazines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mirror Images For the seventh time that day, a metro train left a station just as Ian stepped onto a platform; he hissed: \u201cJeesuzzzz!\u00a0 Again!\u201d The next wasn\u2019t coming for ten minutes. \u201cTen bloody minutes.\u00a0 Jeesuzzzz!\u201d Waiting produces rewarding observation.\u00a0 But Ian just wanted to observe his bed. He sat down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6189,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6187\/revisions\/6189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}