Imbalance: The Price of Vanity

Caroline suggests the unthinkable, knowing O’Carey would rather sell a kidney. Regrettably there is a foreclosure notice on the bedside table, and they have nowhere else to go except out into the desert to reminisce on former days of financial glory living high off the hog in Phoenix.

O’Carey rubs his face remembering the promise he made to himself to never sell his valuable coins, but Caroline doesn’t appreciate any coin unless it is one she can spend. He sighs, “It won’t change anything…then what?” he asks.

Caroline rubs his back. It’s a hard pill for him to swallow, but she tries her best, “They are worth thousands. It’s a fresh start,” she replies.

  O’Carey regrets deeply telling her what was inside the safe in the first place. She moved a painting hanging on the bedroom wall to stumble upon its existence. In hindsight, he could have lied. It’s too late. He frowns and asks, “How can you ask me to sell my most prized possessions?”

“Think of another way to come up with twenty thousand dollars to save the house and you can keep them,” she replies.

There is one coin in particular fueling the obsession, a golden Egyptian Ptolemaic token. He acquired it from a man with two names, deported from Egypt under suspicion of tomb raiding. It’s the only coin in the small collection which hasn’t been authenticated and it could also be the most valuable.

When Caroline goes to the bathroom, O’Carey sneaks it out of the safe and hides it under a stack of old utility bills in the bedside table drawer. Caroline comes back and O'Carey dubiously agrees to sell the entire collection.

Two days later he brings them next door to Miss Bernadine. She works for the local coin dealer, Mr. Salmon, who ends up buying the coins for twenty six thousand in cash. It is an exchange of value that cuts to the bone. For O’Carey cash in hand changes nothing. In a few months this scenario might repeat and he reflects on the very real prospect of it.

At home he thinks about the one coin he has, swearing to keep it no matter what. Unable to bear the feeling of personally selling anything else of value, he gives Caroline the go ahead to sell all the paintings so that ends can meet until he gets a new job.

Caroline sells six of them right off the walls on Etsy, all originals, including the one she moved to find the safe, and sales yield an extra six thousand dollars. O’Carey takes a few hundred dollars out of it with him to the local antiques shop trying to feed his obsessive compulsive taste. Never mind the foreclosure notice, he needs something to hang on bare, bone white walls. Mirrors come to mind. They widen spaces, are relatively inexpensive, and like a painting he can always admire it, or what’s in it.

Mr. Zhong’s little known antiques store in town is a familiar place to O’Carey. Mr. Zhong sees him strolling in and smiles, it’s been a while. He stands with the help of his cane, greeting O’Carey in a crackly voice,” Carey, long time I no see. What you buying today, painting, vase? I have nice one.” He also shuffles towards O’Carey to shake his hand.

“Anything you have that’s called a mirror. Caroline is redecorating. I need five,” O’Carey replies, and shakes Mr. Zhong’s hand.

Simultaneously he glances around the cramped, musty and cluttered shop looking for mirrors he likes, tripping over lampshades and lanterns strewn across the floor. There are quite a few mirrors in there too hiding cracks in the old walls, some with gaudy, gold-colored trim, and some with wood finish on composite frames. They come in all shapes, colors and sizes.

Mr. Zhong remains silent and stares at his long-time customer curiously, and then he answers, “Caroline redecorating, but Caroline not here to buy, strange. I have nice one in back. You pick other four from shop,” he says, and shuffles around to the back of the store.

When Mr. Zhong returns O’Carey is waiting at the counter with four mirrors he already selected. He sees Mr. Zhong holding an oval-shaped shiny polished bronze plate, one with a frame that’s gilded, “This good charm,” Mr. Zhong says.

 O’Carey carefully takes it from him and gasps. It’s the shiniest piece of bronze he’s ever held up in front of himself, and he is amazed at the clarity of his reflection in it. It’s so unnatural, and yet the mirror isn’t made of glass. He turns it around. On the back, there is a puzzling inscription in Chinese. He points to it and asks Mr. Zhong. “What does this say?”

“It say, ‘Pay me one hundred dollar and keep,’ it say, ‘Made China,’. One hundred thirty dollar for all five,” Mr. Zhong replies, with an outstretched hand to collect his money.

The mirror reflects a sparkle in O’Carey’s eyes for all things shiny, pretty and valuable. He is convinced that this mirror is authentic and must have been made for someone very important, and if it is, he’ll never resell it. He will keep it forever, like his golden coin. He can’t stop admiring himself in it, and is ready to take it home so he can hang it on the wall and continue.

 Mr. Zhong pulls his hand back, and almost asks for the mirror back but doesn’t. Instead he puts his index finger on the tip of his tongue, gently, as if preparing a brush for important calligraphy and then uses it to smear a symbol on the mirror’s flawlessly surface. When he’s finished, O’Carey needs no interpretation. It’s the symbol of yin and yang.

O’Carey shrugs this strange behavior off and pays Mr. Zhong his one hundred and thirty dollars. If it’s real this bronze mirror alone compensates for everything he previously lost. Whenever he looks at it O’Carey sees himself according to its value, without considering the price he has to pay for vanity.

With his still shaking voice, Mr. Zhong tells him, “O’Carey, remember, in all things there is balance. Mirror always facing good, prosperity come to you. Qi flow positive. Turn to bad, Qi flow becomes negative,”

O’Carey hears, but isn’t listening. He is completely captivated by this shiny piece of metal and is so busy admiring himself, he doesn’t see the smeared symbol of yin and yang glow a soft yellow before disappearing all together, “Thanks Mr. Zhong,” O’Carey replies.

 The bronze mirror he places on the front passenger seat of the car. The others will ride home in the trunk.

Mr. Zhong worries watching O’Carey leave, wondering if he did the right thing by not telling him the true meaning of the inscription on the back of the mirror. However, he believes its powers will bring prosperity back to his loyal customer, and if it does, he will come back and spend more money.

At home Caroline is pleased with the catch and gets a free hand to decorate the walls however she likes, but O’Carey hasn’t shared Mr. Zhong’s advice and Caroline hangs the bronze mirror in front of O’Carey’s safe where it faces and reflect O’Carey’s bedside table, the same table and drawer where he has hidden his ancient, golden Egyptian coin.

Both Caroline and O’Carey relax and look forward to a new beginning. At bedtime they spoon a little before falling asleep, but at midnight O’Carey shakes violently out of deep sleep with a deadly scream. Drenched in night sweat, he heaves for breath in the darkness with fiery eyes and a mouth agape. His heart is in his eardrums and it beats relentlessly.

Caroline jolts out of sleep from the commotion. Her eyes bulge in the pitch black bedroom. She grabs O’Carey’s arm. It is as hard as a rock, “O’Carey, O’Carey it’s ok,” she says. Gliding her hand along his arm, she feels for his hand trying to hold it, and can’t. It is coiled into a fist. His skin is hot to the touch and radiates like metal baked for a day in the desert sun.

Caroline pulls her hand away in a flash, believing he’s sick and in a delirium. She grabs the phone next to the lamp and dials 911.

When O’Carey hears the dial up he snaps, “What are you doing?” he asks, still panting from the nightmare, and trying to catch his breath.

Caroline disconnects the call and slowly puts the phone back on the table. She is heaving too and catching her breath, “O’Carey,” she says, “I think you had a nightmare…and you also have a very high fever.”

O’Carey, confused, runs his hand across his neck and forehead, “I don’t have a fever,” he replies, and pulls himself up to lean against the headboard.

Instead of trying to convince him, Caroline switches the lamp on to look at him. O’Carey’s eyes are bloodshot, “I’m calling an ambulance,” she says, picking up the phone again.

This time, before she can dial O’Carey grabs her arm, “No you’re not,” he says, “Unless you plan to pay for it.”

 Caroline puts the phone back again, and slides off the bed into her slippers, “I’ll get you some water then,” she says. She takes the glass on the bedside table to the bathroom and fills it with water at the faucet. She drinks the first one and takes the refill to O’Carey who finishes the tall glass in three swift gulps, promptly asking for more. Caroline refills it. This time he finishes in four, but slower.

They spoon again and in an hour they are relaxed and go back to sleep. O’Carey’s fiery restlessness seems to have been put out. He sleeps until dawn when he is disturbed by a subtle pattern of flashing blue and red lights on the bedroom wall coming in through the window.

He rubs his eyes in disorientation, and whispers, “Am I dreaming?” and then gets up to check the window. First responders are out there, at the second house from his down the street! O’Carey furiously shakes Caroline out and tells her to look out the window where she also sees the flashing lights and police cars. It isn’t a dream.

 Caroline presses her hand against her forehead, “O’Carey, I’m sorry, I’ll go talk to them,” she says.

They both scurry down the stairs and out to investigate and explain everything that happened to the police, but when they get to the house they find out it’s not a false alarm at all. Adrian Carter, the man helping O’Carey to refinance his mortgage with the bank, was viciously murdered in his sleep.

Word spreads quickly, and the whole community tightens in tension and shock. Doors are locking and windows are being shuttered.

The day passes by, and Adrian Carter’s killer is still at large. O’Carey and Caroline are also shut in and go to bed thinking about Adrian and the reality of his killer on the loose. They console each other and somehow manage to fall asleep.

At midnight, O’Carey is again flung from a hellish landscape. This nightmare is even worse than the first.

Caroline isn’t sure what to do. She sits up, presses one hand into her chest to settle her racing heart, and places the other on O’Carey’s arm. This is getting serious.

 Again, flashing lights on the bedroom wall, an inquiry as to why, a beastly murder at the house right next door. It’s Miss Bernadine, and no part of her body is intact.

When the sun rises Caroline leaves the house without saying a word. It’s seriousness indicative of her thoughts. She might not come back until this killer is caught, because they are counting down from three. The house they are living in might be next.

O’Carey isn’t bothered. Caroline will come home. He goes to the bathroom to wash his face. When he’s finished he stands in front of the bronze mirror on the bedroom wall to groom himself. Curiously leaning his head, he doesn’t understand what he sees.

 It’s hot. Sweat pours from his brow. He wipes it away in his sleeve and looks again. This reflection is not his, it’s not even human. What he sees he doesn’t believe, but he recognizes the creature staring menacingly back at him. It’s the Egyptian God of the underworld, Anubis and O’Carey freezes in a recollection of dreadful events.

Vivid memories of murder and mayhem confront him. He recalls eviscerating and mauling Adrian Carter inside his house. He remembers, in horror, massacring Miss Bernadine in pretty much the same way. Anubis brings him out of the trance and speaks to him in a deep, thunderous, fear inspiring voice, “You have something that belongs to me. I want it back,”

“Take your fucking mirror back!” O’Carey shouts.

Anubis only laughs a deep, otherworldly laugh, and says, “This portal belongs to a friend: Huangdi. You have something else that belongs to me. I want it back.”

O’Carey has heard the name before. Huangdi is the Yellow Emperor of Qi. He dashes to the bedside table and pulls the drawer open. Desperately feeling for the coin, he snatches it out from under the stack of old utility bills, and stands in front of the mirror, holding the coin up, “Here, take it. I don’t want it,” he says.

Anubis doesn’t reply. The coin glows bright red and burns O’Carey’s fingertips. He drops it. It even burns the floor, turning the spot on the tile where it rests black until cooling back to its golden state.

Again Anubis speaks, “That token was taken from my portal in Nubia. You gladly paid for it, and at the expense of your own home. Bring the token back to my portal or this curse will be yours to bear. Restore the balance or pay double the price,” Anubis replies, and suddenly the outline of the yin and yang glows a bright yellow on the mirrors surface. O’Carey finally sees it before it fades away into his own reflection. 

He snags the mirror off the wall, picks the coin up too and blazes a trail to Mr. Zhong’s antique store hoping to rescind the transaction. His heart is pounding, his hands are shaking. Selling the coin with mirror is an ideal he hopes to accomplish but he doesn’t know that Mr. Zhong’s fate is in his hands.

When he sees Mr. Zhong inside the store O’Carey’s fingers grow rapidly, nine inches longer. His face becomes elongated like a jackal’s, and fangs stretch long, down and up from his gums. Black hair covers his face and body. His eyes gleam yellow and wild, and he rips Mr. Zhong into bits of unidentifiable pieces of carnage.

Alas, O’Carey picks up the mirror he dropped and sees his true self in it. Mired in blood and gore, he runs out of the shop in a panic. It isn’t a bad dream. This time he remembers the savagery performed inside the store on Mr. Zhong. Scrambling to his car he drives for miles to an abandoned graveyard on the eastern side of the city.

 He breaks one grave open with a small axe hidden under the car seat, shoving mirror, coin and his bloodied clothes inside, hoping no one has seen him, hoping Anubis will accept this. Clattering his way back to the car he enters, numb and confused. He peels tires and speeds away in search of somewhere to gather racing thoughts.

He doesn’t go home, spending the night far away from it at the train station locked inside his car. He opens his eyes at dawn to find pieces of someone he can’t identify, scattered and plastered all over the interior of the vehicle. In human form O’Carey hyperventilates, shuddering at the sight of his own bloodshot eyes in the rear view mirror. Reluctantly he drives back to the cemetery scraping for the coin and mirror in true grave robbing fashion.

He pulls the mirror out and looks in it. Anubis reappears and doesn’t speak. The bright yellow glow of yin and yang reappears and fades into O’Carey’s own reflection. Enraged, O’Carey drives home. In the back yard he blazes the hottest fire he ever lit in his life with an acetylene torch, melting both mirror and coin in a single mold. He digs a hole three feet deep, shakes the hot clump of metal in and buries it, “Here’s your fucking portal. Here’s your bloody token!” he screams, and storms inside the house to shower.

Shortly after, Caroline comes home. They don’t speak to each other. On their respective minds there’s a lot to think about. In the night they go to bed in silence, without even a goodnight kiss and with an imaginary line in the middle of the bed.

Sunrise, it was all a bad dream. O’Carey will finally go job hunting. On his way out the door he remembers his wallet on the bedside table upstairs and re-enters quietly, Caroline is still sleeping. He stumbles his way across the room a little light headed. On the bedside table he sees the wallet where he thought it would be and checks to make sure all the money that should be in it is still there.

 Something else gets his attention, his pulse races. Something is off-putting in his peripheral vision. Slowly and nervously he turns to face the bedroom wall, expecting to see the familiar grey metal door of the safe, but O’Carey is frightened by his own reflection. Intact and shimmering with a now golden surface, and hanging on the bedroom wall, is the now cursed metal mirror. In it he sees himself standing in front of blood-soaked sheets draped across the pale, mutilated body of a woman: Caroline!

At the airport, O’Carey pays in cold hard cash for an emergency flight to Egypt, with a shiny, golden, priceless oval mirror in tow.

THE END