Another Time, Another Place

“Open the door, Ariel,” Steven spoke. “Why is the bathroom door locked?” she heard.

“Just one second,” Ariel responded.

The vibrations within her reminded her of something. She used two fingers to dig into her haven and pull out the miniature vibrator that had all but run out of steam.

What the fuck? she thought.

Ariel panicked. She wrapped the device in toilet paper and threw it into the wastebasket. The louder bang on the door grabbed her attention. Tentatively, she headed for the door. She was slightly fearful without a total understanding of why. Steven immediately turned on the light.

“The house was hit by lightning,” Steven stated excitedly. “Are you okay?”

“I was looking at myself in the mirror, and then all of a sudden, it shattered beneath my hand.”

Ariel was dumbfounded. It appeared as though the words magically appeared into her thoughts for the first time and at the same time the words felt familiar to her.

“What in the hell happened to the wall?” Steven asked before he realized that he was asking the obvious. “The lightning strike did that?”

“I believe so.”

Steven lifted the bloody face cloth from her hand, gazed at the quarter-inch deep cut and then closed his fingers around hers.

“It’s a good thing only your palm was cut. Hell, glass from the mirror could have exploded and cut you in all sorts of places… something wrong?” Steven asked.

“Uh, nothing,” Ariel lied.

She was stunned. The man before her she’d never seen before, yet he was so familiar to her. His look, the walk and the sound of his voice was as comfortable as a broken-in pair of shoes. Yet, she seemed to be living through a déjà vu moment. She looked around the bathroom, then the bedroom; all of the surroundings were different. Yet, certain details down to the pattern on the bed’s comforter were part of her conscious memory. She didn’t understand why and the fact scared her. Everything had a familiar feel and everything was new. She felt displaced, in a new reality, seemingly in another place and another time.

“Can I have a moment?” Ariel asked Steven.

She didn’t wait for an answer. She walked out of the bedroom down the hall to the guest bathroom, closed the door behind her and sat on the toilet with her head between her hands.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Ariel whispered as if Steven was standing outside of the door. “None of it. My name is…”

Ariel could visualize a name, feel that she’d been called something different, but the name could not be spoken. She stood, examining herself in the mirror. What Ariel saw was a carbon copy of herself. She had longer hair than she remembered, yet the length was familiar to her. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t recall growing it that length. She leaned closer to the mirror, and then her heart pounded deep within her. It vibrated like a bass drum.

Since the lightning strike many things were memorable, yet most felt like a distant memory. The one thing she was certain of was that she never had a mole under her right eye. With an unconscious move she touched the area above her right eye, positive that a scar from a childhood injury had been there.

I’ve seen you before, she thought.

“I’ve seen you in the mirror just before the lightning strike,” she stated aloud with nervous tension. “Am I you now? My name is…”

Ariel thought long and hard about it. She searched for an answer that eluded her.

“Ariel Jonston,” she spoke to the reflection in the mirror. She somehow believed that personalities of two people were within her.

TEN

April watched her lips closely in the powder room’s mirror. Her lips formed words that confused her. She spoke the name April Jonston. It stirred confusion within her that combined certainty with uncertainty. Deep down she felt the essence of another. She snapped her fingers as in “eureka.”

“The woman in the mirror,” she spoke aloud.

She instinctively went to rub a thumb over the mole under her right eye, but this time the familiar beauty mark was absent. Her thumb actually landed on the scar above the left eye.

“I didn’t have this before the lightning strike,” she spoke to her reflection. “Who am I now?”

“April?” Virgil said. “Are you okay in there?”

The question bothered her to some degree, but since the surroundings, the man, and the name she was called felt like a warm snuggly comforter, she answered him with less concern than before she entered the half-bath.