A string of vulgarities flowed freely from my lips after the lights blinked out without warning. We never had power outages in my part of the city. What the f was going on?
I turned on my phone flashlight and traipsed to the back of the house where the generator was. I'd not used it in a long while and hoped it responded without much stress.
After multiple attempts to switch it on, I gave up and trudged back into the house. I checked the time, fifteen minutes had passed and the light wasn't restored. Strange.
A creaking sound somewhere in the house drew me out of my self-pity and wayward thoughts. I raised my phone above my head and used the flashlight to scan the room.
Nothing.
I was going to open the fridge in the kitchen and grab a soda when the creaking sound became loud.
Then, I became concerned.
My phone light began to flicker. So weird. It wasn't electricity light nor connected to the grid. It was a LED light from my device for Pete's sake! I turned it off and tapped my screen to turn it on again when the white light flashed and displayed a human face directly in front of mine!
I screamed and flung my phone away while stumbling over a small stool beside the sofa. I fell over and smacked my hip on the floor.
I broke out in a sweat and cussed myself inwardly. My phone!
A cackle echoed in my apartment. I began to tremble, beads of sweat dotting my forehead and streaming down my face within seconds. My stomach rumbled and I wished for the bathroom at the moment.
"People think you are brave but you are not! Just look at you," the voice in the dark said, causing more goosebumps to erupt on my skin and the hairs on my neck to stand.
If this was the way to hell, I wished for some divine intervention at that moment. I did not like the sound of the voice or the situation I was in. Maybe it was time I got a roommate in my three bedroom apartment.
"Who-who are you?" My voice sounded terrible. I hated myself at that moment. All the times I'd judged people for cowardice in or out of the courtroom were done with malicious satisfaction. I felt like a god at those times; a superior, intelligent being stationed high above the puny, dull beings.
"Pity that you don't recognise your dispassionate voice. Ugh."
The silence around me was deafening. Then the lights came on.
There I stood beside the TV dressed in an orange-yellow flowing gown with my hair styled in a bun. I grimaced involuntarily. I hated those colours and the hairstyle made me look stupid.
"Ah-ha!" She said, pointing a finger at me. "That look! That's what will send you straight to hell."
"Excuse me?" I'd suddenly become bold, stretching to my full height from behind the sofa where I'd hidden after the fall.
"You heard me. Aren't you tired of feeding off those helpless people?"
"What are you talking about?"
She scowled at me and began to walk closer. I stepped back a little and stopped at the realisation that she was me. She arched her brow and smiled.
"Your job. Separating families."
"That's what they pay me to do," I argued.
"Of course but you have a choice—"
"Not to do it? I'll starve!"
"To do the right thing while doing your job."
We stared at each other for a long moment. It was an epiphany. I was good at my job as a family law attorney that specialises in child custody. More often, those cases get overturned because the spouses I represented were more interested in winning than for the love of the child. I found ways to make the caring spouse lose custody while my client got it and I was handsomely paid.
Faces of crying mothers and sometimes fathers flashed before me.
"Shame on you," she whispered with a sneer.
I scowled and felt my nostrils flaring. "What do you want from me? How dare you judge me?"
She laughed so hard that I became uncomfortable. "You judge yourself. I advise you to stop before it's too late. You grew up in a foster home. You should know better….and do better. How dare you?"
And just like that, she vanished before my eyes.
I was awake all night as sleep deserted me. I was afraid of shutting my eyes. What if I didn't wake up again? In the morning, I walked to my firm and tendered my letter of resignation.
It was time to get that much-needed vacation. I bought a copy of Eat Pray Love at the airport before boarding my flight.
I hope you enjoyed reading this short fiction inspired by the prompt from Prompt A Day: "A character confronts their own reflection, which has come to life with a message for them."
Thank you for visiting my blog.
