An Act Of Violence on Time

A young woman holds her hair back with both hands and moves in closer to the mirror.  She frowns, and pulls back to a safe distance.  She slides a porcelain brush through her long blonde hair. 

When she finishes, she returns to the mirror, her brow furrowed with worry.  Her phone rings.

“Hello?” She asks.  “You will speak this time… hello?”  She speaks with a Polish accent, a staccato flow of English words.  She watches herself in the mirror as she talks, as if practicing for some future conversation.

“Do not hang up!” She slams the phone down.  “Five times this week!  Call and hang up..” 

A man in a gray suit appears in the mirror.  He has bushy eyebrows and an ever present cigarette burning away in his left hand. 

Time is never on our side, it moves forward at its own patient insistence, and no barrier formed by man has been able to hold it. 

Take one Ania Wieczorek, a haunted woman with no desire to see time peel away the one thing her poor upbringing didn’t take away from her: her beauty.

Ania applies make-up to her face with care, the way a historian would handle a priceless ancient document. 

Ania is a stunning young woman, the envy of girls and the desire of men, her beauty an unpredictable magnet for both good and evil.  To date, she’s learned to deal with both, but she will find that mirrors and watches cannot tell her everything she needs to know, because often reflection is an elusive thing… in the Twilight Zone…

A red and yellow 1959 Desoto Firesweep pulls in front of Ania’s apartment.    The horn blows.  

Ania glances out the window and shakes her head. 

“Boys with their silly toys…” 

She opens the window and leans out. 

A young man with an expensive leather jacket pulls himself through the driver’s side window. 

“Babe, come on already…”

Ania scowls at him. 

 “You will wait…” 

Ania goes back to her mirror and finishes her work.

+++

“You’re only 26 and everybody in the room, including me, wishes they looked as good as you.  You worry too much….” 

“Will worry… make me look older?”  Ania asks. 

“No, hon… but this conversation is making me older… you should get over yourself a little. You have a good job at the hospital; you’re smart and gorgeous…” 

A waiter brings their coffee in white mugs on saucers. 

“Arlene…” Ania says, “…I have a… how do say in English… a confession?” 

“A confession?  Oh girl, I ain’t no Catholic…”

“I’m 34 years old.” 

Arlene stops the mug halfway to her lips and returns it to the saucer. 

“What?” 

“In Poland, lying was easy.  Here, lying is… necessary.” 

Ania moves too quickly for her coffee cup and it tips over.  She recoils, bracing for the flow of hot liquid but it never catches her. The coffee slides to the left and onto the floor.   Arlene looks on in amazement. 

“You really are impossibly lucky aren’t you?” 

“I… don’t know how that happened.” 

The two sit in silence while a bus boy arrives to clean up the spill.  It’s obvious he is struggling not to stare at Ania.  Only Arlene notices. 

Ania is busy looking at a warped reflection of herself in the window, beyond which lies the city in all its chilly confinement, air ready to fill with snow at any minute.    When Ania finally returns her gaze to her friend, Arlene is frowning. 

“I think we should go.  It’s probably nothing…” 

“What?”  Ania asks. 

“Up till now, I rationalized you were so much prettier than me because you were younger.  Now I find out your older… you lied to me…”  Arlene stops and gets up from the table.  “I’ll call you soon.  I need some time.” 

Ania sits alone for a moment before leaving. 

The cold hits her, cuts right through her jacket.  She wraps a scarf around her neck and places her hands in her pockets when something grabs her arm by the elbow, jerks her into an alley and throws her body to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. 

One man rifles through her pockets and purse, another stands at the foot of the alley on lookout.  The mugger pinches her chin between his thumb and forefinger. 

“What else you got?”  He asks.  He has wild, bloodshot eyes.  She feels the pain in her jaw, smells his awful breath; feels his body looming over her.

And then he is gone. 

A moment passes before she stands up and sees both men sprawled like road kill on the ground.   Her breath frosts in the air. 

“What…?” 

The men on the ground don’t even groan.  She wonders if they’re breathing but doesn’t want to find out. 

She leaves. 

As she rounds the corner, she repeats her cold weather procedure: tighten scarf, and puts her hands in her pockets.  This time, her hand grasps a paper that she didn’t put there.  

She takes it out. 

Spotykają mnie przy biblioteces.  

She can’t remember the last time someone wrote to her in her native language.  The cold finally seeps into her bones and she shakes to stop the chill running through her. 

The library is closed, she stands in front of the closed door and waits, watching random snowflakes make long, curved paths to the ground. 

She follows one to her eye level where it stops in mid air. 

Cars halt in the road, flashing lights get stuck in various on and off positions.  A red light stays red long past normal. 

“Hello Ania!”  A deep voice calls out, followed by heavy, shuffling footfalls and a stifled cough.

A large man, with enormous shoulders and thick arms appears from the darkness.  He is dressed in Dickies work clothes, the name Wiesnewski embroidered on his barrel chest.  He is smiling, a wide grin full of misshapen teeth.

 

“Steven?”  She says.  “What are you… why are you here?” 

His smile fades, but not completely. 

“I wanted to talk to you.”  He says.  “It has been a long time.”

Ania sighs. 

“Has it been long enough, Steven?” 

“Any time away from you is too long.” 

“No, Steven… no.  You don’t do this.  Not here, we are… thousands of miles apart.  You are still in Poland.” 

She walks away from him. 

“Now, Ania.  Now!  Now, there is only you and me.” 

She stops.  The red lights are still red.  The few snowflakes still hang without strings before her eyes. 

“What have you done, Steven?” 

He sits on the step and pats the place next him.  Reluctantly, she sits. 

“I stop time.”  He says.  “I keep you from spilling hot coffee, I watch you… help you.” 

She nods. 

“You are calling me as well? And hanging up?” 

“Yes.”  He flushes red.  “I am sorry.”

“How do you do this… stop time?” 

He reaches into a deep pocket and produces a small, silver-handled mirror.  Ania gasps. 

“You still…” 

“I do.  You left it home.  I find…” He holds it up, stares into it.  “…I find if I look long enough I can stop everything.  Everything is still. If I think of you too, you get to be here with me. It is all my dreams come true.”

“How?” 

He shrugs his massive shoulders and starts to cough. 

“Because I am a stubborn Pollock… like your mother say about me?” 

“More stubborn than smart.”  She says, her eyes on the mirror.  “You can stop time with this?” 

“Yes.  But only a few times.  I use it only when I have to.” 

“You stop time, you are young always?” 

Steven shakes his head. 

“No.  When I return, I think I grow old twice as fast. In old country, I never cough.  I never get sick.  Now I am sick all the time.” 

“You can concentrate, yes?  On anything? And it can happen?” 

Steven stares at her for a moment, and she feels his gaze heavy on her soul, like all the youthful energy of his past is focused on her, covering her up so she could see him as a child again; a child with thicker blond hair, blue eyes, and muscles that still held definition and purpose.  Her heart flutters in her chest like a tiny, singing bird for a moment, and she can feel her blood soar within her. 

He gets up and walks down a few steps until he can see her eye to eye. 

“Do you love me Ania?”  He asks.

She feels her chest tighten, caging the fluttering bird within her and closing her mind to its song.

“No.” 

He shakes his head with a slow, sad grace. 

“Then no, Ania… I can’t concentrate on anything and make it happen.” 

She stands, puts a hand on each of his shoulders. 

“Steven… You must… You must try.  We have to fight… think of my dead parents,  grandparents, my aunts and uncle.  All so old and weak and sick … poor, always with cold and no sun, there must be something we can do…” 

He doesn’t reply. 

“Steven.”  She pleads.  “At work, I see people are old and then dead… there must be something.”     

“I can read now, Ania.  I wanted to meet here to show you. “

“Stop, you act like a child again.  It is time to grow up.  You can do this… thing, and you do nothing but spy on me and accomplish nothing…” 

“Ania…”

“No, Steven… you were useless to me then and you are useless to me now… let me go…” 

He holds a shaky hand out to her.

“Please..” 

She covers her ears and shouts.

“Let me go!!” 

The suspended snowflakes fall to the ground in an instant, falling straight down despite the wind. 

She turns, but Steven is nowhere to be seen. 

++++

Ania goes about her life, her mirror, a string of dates with uninteresting and uninterested men, and she feels the presence of Steven on and about her always.  

When one day she is pushed out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, she whirls about yelling and cursing at everyone around her in Polish.  People scatter and whisper things she can’t hear, but her imagination fills in the words so she yells and curses louder.

Soon after, his presence vanishes and a strange loneliness creeps up on her. It brings no sadness, only a feeling of loss.

She works at the hospital, tending to old people who often die before she can get to know them.  On bad days, she speaks to them in Polish, hoping one may understand.  None do. 

Eventually, she finds Steven in the intensive care unit. The silver handled mirror rests on his bedside table.  A clear mask covers his gaunt face, his giant skeleton protruding from folds of yellow, spotted skin.  What’s left of his hair is white and his once brilliant blue eyes are gray through a film of white paste. 

The red light of a heart monitor jumps up and down slowly, as if reporting Steven’s life force was just too much effort. 

Ania puts a hand over his and it feels papery and brittle. 

“You do this to yourself?” 

He nods his head a fraction of an inch, and his heart monitor flatlines. 

Ania grabs the mirror and puts it over his face. 

“Concentrate Steven… save yourself, please!” 

The monitor stops.  An old woman waving to her family freezes in position.  A doctor holds defibrillator paddles above the chest of a patient.  No one moves.  

“Steven… can you speak?” 

His voice is only a whisper. 

“More stubborn than smart.” 

She laughs bitterly. 

“I’m sorry.  We can stay here… you and I.  You will get better and we will go back home.  I promise…” 

“No.”  He says.  “I am dead already.  You go… I am bad guardian angel, yes?” 

“No, Steven… you can concentrate.”

“I love you, Ania…” 

Before she can respond, Steven throws her back into time.  His heart monitor panics in a monotone shriek that pierces Ania’s ears and heart.  With the mirror still in hand, she covers her ears and backs away.  Doctors and nurses amass over Steven’s body and their hurried work plays out for Ania in horrid slow motion. 

+++

Ania sits in her apartment, staring at the silver handled mirror, a pale streak across one cheek as a tear runs across her skin.

Ania Wieczorek, a haunted woman who will spend the rest of her days looking into a mirror and trying to control something one can only read on a watch or a wrinkle, because Ania found out too late that time will always win, even in the Twilight Zone.