A Slumber Makes Beautiful...

The man gazed at himself in the dilapidated mirror in the rundown motel room. It was only thirty dollars a night, and although the man was well funded by his line of work, the childhood habit of being “money conscious” as his mother would say, still stuck around with him to this day. He caressed a rough calloused hand over his face, still smooth as always, no five o'clock shadow, no acne scars, and stubborn pustules like most people had. No, the man always kept himself clean, it was a ritual of his, before and after every woman he encountered and had fun with on his trip across America. He turned back around and peeked his head out of the bathroom to look at her. She didn't seem to mind the hostel they were in. Then again from what he learned about “Sammy” in the last six hours, she was smart enough to mind it. And people say blondes are dumb…

The brunette was soundlessly unconscious, to the man, looking as if she was floating in the land of dreams. He always had that effect on women. Better than him, he thought. He smirked at the woman. Another day, another gal’ another dollar. His phone dinged as he finished off the rest of his skincare routine. Exfoliation complete. Now moisturize. For this evening, it was a multitasking face moisturizer containing hyaluronic acid, brightening niacinamide, and amino peptides to keep his skin looking smoother and firmer. It made his square jawline all the more solid. He finished his routine off with a hydrating lip moisturizer since he found that unlike the rest of the skin, the lips didn't contain an extra dead layer for added protection, so they would need extra care. Besides, he had a reputation of many to keep: a man with one of the softest lips.

He stared into the mirror, into his dark eyes, then finally took himself in. Hair was clean on the side, the right amount of balm on the hair, and the perfect cologne. He let himself smile, showing straight white teeth. It was a grin that could win him an Oscar if he wanted to, but one, he wasn't one for that amount of attention, and two: it didn't feel real to him. To others, it could make the most loyal wives blush and contemplate their marriage, but to him, it was a facade, just like the extra layer of dead skin on his face.

Not enough. Never enough. Not sculpted enough.

A scowl appeared on his face as the thought appeared. His muddy brown eyes started to itch, but not because of the contacts, but because of the swelling of tears appearing.” Never enough!” He smashed his hand against the counter, rattling his products to the floor. He cursed to himself then cleaned up. “You will never be enough!” a voice hissed at him. He jumped up, searching the bathroom for its source. He turned and stared out into the room. No, Sammy was sound asleep. “Such an ugly boy!” the voice came again, somehow so sour yet so rough as to make the man think it was her again. That she returned. A cold finger trailed down his back.

“Look at me boy!” it uttered in his ears. The man stared up into the mirror. 

He reeled back in terror as he was gone and instead a ghoulish creature of porcelain skin stared at him. The witch’s dusty hair seemed to move on its own as her eyeless sockets seeped darkness into the room. The man’s terror turned to an acceptance, an acceptance turned to rage, and finally, a rage turned to annoyance. She was back. “Your skull is too large! Your eyes are too droopy! Your nose is too bumpy and your face too flappy! Bad! Bad! BAD.” she groaned. The man scoffed at her. “And look at you,” the man whispered. “Look at you now...mother.”

Mother’s waxy skin stretched to a grimy grin, shards of dirty glass for teeth. “You’re not like your father...too wrinkly...all that meat but too much fat. You are soaking the dinner in lard!” cackled and like a dip in an icy lake, the man was back in the past. He was shorter, pudgier like his mother said, and he’d just gotten back from school. His eyes were swollen with tears and his face was stained with the grease of chips and other delightful snacks. That was her game, he realized long ago. After the abuse from the bullies, she’d stuff his mouth full of all the treats, then scream at him. All the cheese made his lactose intolerance rocket sky high, sending droves of pimples on his face, and his odor from flatulence horrendous. She’d notice it all. How one pimple stood out from the others, how one side of his face appeared fatter than the other. All while father laid in that chair of his in that living room, catatonic, motionless, forever watching the tv, no life left in him. No defense against his wife, almost agreeing with her. His eyes, always staring at that screen, not even caring to shred any doubt about it.

The man shook his head back to reality. He stared at the ghostly figure in the mirror, cursing under his breath. Mother...it took him another ten years, ten years to shape up and burn away the lard and to sculpt his body to be accepted among his classmates, be an athletic paragon, to be smart enough to choose whether to go with an athletic scholarship or another just by his brains alone to any college he wanted in America. Ten years to finally rid his face of those eruptions of pus and to rid himself of Mother’s words. Yet here she was, staring back at him through that mirror. The damn mirror…

He clenched the mirror, shaking it violently until he sent a fist into his, cratering it. Pieces of glass intruders entered his skin. He pulled a speck out of his palm, watched as his world came back to life as bright blood met the fluorescent light of the bathroom. He grinned. Ten years...ten years to leave mother, become an esteemed physician, so good in fact, he could travel anywhere in the world, and the most desperate uglies in the world, with the right amount of money, would pay him to solve their inevitable problems. The bathroom shook with laughter. The man turned to see the husk of his mother floating in front of him. If he focused long enough, he could almost smell her. The cheap rose perfume trying to mask the odor of sweat, tuna, and rotting flesh.

Ten years...another five to see his career be washed away, by one mistake...Just one. She said she wanted to be perfect. That she wanted to be the best. That she wanted her family to remember her that way. It wasn't his fault if she asked for the assistance. He was a physician and that was his duty, to assist, to help the sick, to make the imperfect, perfect again. Even if it meant they had to sleep, sleep forever.

His phone dinged again. He swiped the phone off the counter and set it on vibrate. He turned back to the shattered mirror, washing away the blood under cold water as the ghostly specter of his mother crept beside his ear. “Not enough...never enough…”

“NOT TO YOU.” he shouted. He caught himself and stared back into the bedroom. Sammy was still asleep. Good. it was better that way. It was better for that patient to be put to sleep, to be made perfect for the first and last time. But the man’s view on assisted suicide was frowned upon by his peers. In fifteen years, all his hard work squandered because of uglies views. It wasn't the end…

“Never the end…” his mother reappeared.

“No...never the end.”

He found out that day, as the sickly woman stood motionless on her deathbed, that she looked more beautiful than anything he could imagine. She wasn't dying ugly. She was perfect..Finally perfect...!  It could be done. Mother was wrong! Somebody, anybody could be made perfect! It took him fifteen years but he’d done it! So why didn't anybody else understand him? Why did they look at him with fear and disgust? Why couldn’t his wife see it? She said until death does us part, but when she parted she never looked so beautiful, so perfect. He wanted the world to see, to feel as he did, to know that it could happen, that perfection did exist. He knew just how to do it…

The man smiled into the shattered mirror. His face was nonexistent, instead of a jumbled sharp mess of teeth, eyes, and blood. “I can make them perfect mother. I can make them better. You can't see it though. Well because you are dead.” he turned and watched as the apparition of his mother disappeared. Senior year in high school and the man realized that all he had to do was slip enough ricin in her sleep to make it seem like she died from sickness. Yet she still haunted him. She was the only one of them to not be perfect. When she died, she was a gray, heaving mess of coughs and gasp for air, eyes gouging out of their sockets almost especially when she’d come to the realization that her predicament was his doing.

You win some, you lose some, the man thought. He needed to make a few. He needed to learn from his mother, from that patient in order to be here to this day. He would spread his findings to the world, maybe not in lab reports or studies from colleges, but still, his work was renowned in other places…

His phone vibrated. He smiled down at it. The funny thing about other places is that these places, however dark, however this darkness, like a web, spreads and sticks all across the wide world, in the shadows and the internet especially. The man was never out of work. Each ding on his phone confirmed that. Plenty of men and women asked for his help, his assistance. They wanted to see his work, to make their wives, business partners, children, perfect. He needed to make them perfect. The man cursed to himself after stopping the bleeding. He would need to clean up more thoroughly. No time for recklessness. He wiped the bathroom down clean with his to-go bag of chemicals, gloves, wipes, and other supplies that would make it appear as if only Sammy was here. The blood especially had to disappear. 

When he was finished, his phone vibrated again. He buttoned up his double-breasted jacket, void of any debris and fur or any other pestilence, then responded back to the client.

It is done.

He shut his phone and stared down at Sammy one last time. Her raven dark hair was brushed and combed perfectly, eyelashes and makeup pristine and her full soft lips cold, but to the maid that would come in the morning, it appeared that she was asleep, soundlessly and beautifully. Sammy was sculptured. Sammy was perfect. There would be others who would need the man’s work, his gift. Yet as he closed the door to the room with gloved hands and put on his hat and glasses, blinking away the itchiness of his eyes now free of the colored contact lenses, avoid crept back to his surface. He could hear her cackling, laughing, and still whispering in the back of his consciousness.

Not enough. Never enough.