Weekly Finalist: Self Portraits by John Lindner
Self Portraits
He observed that there were two of him in her sunglasses, identical twins, one of him in each lens. And each image was a miniature portrait, head and shoulders painted dark, backlit by an April sky, each copy sharing its frame with a likewise duplicated white cloud. And as long as she gazed at him he could watch himself … watching himself.
She wondered if it were a good or bad sign that he’d shown up wearing the same style sunglasses. Apparently gold-rimmed aviators had returned to the perigee of their orbit around the fashion sun.
She noticed in his glasses a lock of her hair curving across her face. She watched her hand reach into each frame and tuck the dark blonde strands behind her ear. Despite the diminished detail of the tiny reflected images, or because of it, she admired the faces that returned her gaze. The miniature silhouettes hinted of drama, like masks emerging from shadow, or spies behind a curtain. She liked that she could see what he could see, that she could track his vision of her in his eyes.
He squinted, straining for definition, hoping to see more of himself; but the harsh natural light and small lenses diffused fine distinctions. In her eyes, the lines of his face disappeared, the curves softened, as if his likeness had been airbrushed onto the windows of her soul. Does she see, he wondered, who I see?
And as the jetliner crept across their lenses, each thought, “that’s a reflection of the aircraft from my own glasses” then said, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
August 4th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
A leeetle bit complicated. But it’s kind of hard not to be when one is dancing so close to the mirror/mirror/infinity thing (or should infinity be in the middle?) – either way, great ending.