Fishing for Mermaids

Beautiful

It was an ugly disease that drew Selene away from mirrors and into the darkest alleys; far from her family who insisted she was gorgeous, far from her boyfriend who wanted to marry her, and far from her reflection which constantly betrayed her. And all for that nose, that horrible trumpet of a nose she couldn't escape from in mirrors, which protruded in all directions from the center of her otherwise beautiful face. It shadowed her crystal blue eyes and grew over her lips. In the months before she ran away, it had even begun to grow back into her skull, stemming deeply into her brain.

People seemed to stare in disgust at her nose; how could they not? She began to dream of circuses carting her off to display her hideous nose to the world. The circus people knew where she lived and had somehow convinced her family to lie to her about the state of her nose, perhaps so that she could be persuaded to stay. But Selene could see the circus people slowly creeping closer to her bedroom window each night; first they would sneak into the bushes then into the trees. Finally one night they were right outside her window, staring at her in disgust and awe, rapping at the window pane, scratching for a way in. She ran from her bedroom and didn't stop until she reached an alleyway: dark, dirty, and full of discarded bits of lives.

Eventually she felt safe, everyone seemed to have stopped looking for her, and Selene kept to herself in the alleyway. She collected clothes from dumpsters and found a scarf that she believed covered her nose perfectly. She wore it nearly every day. She couldn't imagine who would throw away such a beautiful garment, despite its condition; thin, indigo cotton strands sewn to depict flower petals and long stems reaching to the sun for life. With her nose beneath the tattered scarf, she began to grow tired of the grime and longed for beauty of some sort. That's when she began making mosaics from the glass on the street.

Glass from the most elegant broken vases and from the most vile bottles of liquor. She transformed these shattered remnants of memories into glorious pieces of art, held together by alleyway mud she collected after thunderstorms. Under the cloak of her scarf, she sold her mosaic pieces on the main road near her alley. A dollar for this, fifty cents for that: Just enough to ensure her a meal from the gas station, though she could have made millions from her art, had her circumstances been different.

She always sold all of her pieces: to sympathetic housewives, laughing teenagers willing to spare some change, and tired workers longing from some beauty on their commute home. With the glass she collected from the alley, she created brilliant suns and sleepy moons, images from her past, before her nose blocked them from her vision. She created smiling faces of mothers and children, laughing and kissing. She couldn't even remember anymore if her mother had ever smiled or kissed her, though she was sure at one point she must have. Still, her pieces always seemed to capture a moment of happiness and love, a moment of beauty, a moment she had only imagined for too long.

There was only one piece she never sold. A mosaic face-a gleaming, symmetrical goddess-skin made from brown beer bottles, eyes from azure marbles some child must have discarded, lips from a shattered porcelain heart and no nose. Selene treasured this piece, holding it to her face every now and then and imagining it was mirror. It erased any memories of people coming to get her or her nose conquering her beauty, and when she peered into the glass, sometimes even removing the scarf from her face, she could almost see a beautiful woman staring back at her.

The night Selene died she occupied herself with collecting more shards of glass from her alleyway. She knelt to pick up pieces from beneath the dumpsters and between the cracks in the pavement, but without enough pieces she couldn't complete the mosaic she had planned: The most beautiful mosaic she had created yet, other than the face, of a blooming iris pointing towards the heavens.

Selene flung herself into the dumpster, tearing open bags of garbage and searching wildly for some more broken glass. Through the thick plastic she could feel something cool and hard, perhaps a discarded photo frame or decorative plate. She slit the bag with her finger nails and rummaged through the trash to find the treasure.

Then, there it was, cruel and vindictive, as if the circus people or her family had purposely placed it for her to find: a cracked hand mirror, reflecting a distorted Selene. She could see the lump of her nose beneath the scarf on almost all the pieces of the cracked mirror and, as if it could sense her finally noticing it, her nose began to grow from beneath the scarf, until it appeared to nearly rip the fibers apart to break free.

Selene threw off the scarf-she couldn't risk damaging it, should her nose return to normal-but her nose didn't stop.

It consumed her face, first covering her lips then her eyes then her chin then her forehead, until finally it appeared as if her entire head was just a nose: a horrible, lumpy nose which nearly caused Selene to topple over.

She could sense the circus people drawing near. "Yes," they hissed. They were coming with boxes to take her, to put her on display.

She crashed the mirror against the pavement, sending shards of her reflection flying around her. She took the largest slice and, determined to be beautiful, began to cut through her horrible nose. Selene cried out in pain. She could feel the glass moving through her nose in her lips, in her eyes, in her chin, and in her brain where it had once lodged itself.

If she could just remove it, she could get back to normal. She could look at herself in the mirror again and return to her family. She could marry her once boyfriend and lead a normal life without a nose, looking as beautiful as the mosaic goddess she had created.

But if she couldn't remove it, she would have to deal with the disgusting nose she was given, which would probably be more swollen than ever.

The only way to be beautiful, she reasoned, was to become the mosaic goddess herself. She cut through her nose, and began to tile herself in glass. The pain would go away as soon as her nose dislodged itself from her brain, she thought, so she continued to mosaic herself.

She lifted the shattered glass from beer bottles and shoved it beneath her skin. Red porcelain slit through her lips.

The pain would end soon.

The bits of mirror created a reflective sun on her stomach, and her legs were tiled in green bottle shards.

When would the pain end?

Blood ran between the bits of glass, congealing them together it seemed.

Selene's aching body writhed in the alley beside the dumpster, and a puddle began to pool beneath her.

She lifted the last large piece of the mirror and held it to her face: skin made from brown beer bottles, eyes made from crystal tears which now streaked down her cheeks, lips made from red porcelain, and no nose.

If her new lips had allowed her, Selene would have smiled. What a beautiful sight, a mosaic person. She could feel her nose dislodging itself from her brain in defeat, and as she broke free, she took a final breath. "Beautiful," she sighed.