Noumena: Sophie and Oliver

Chapter Six: Mirror Mirror

I showered and dressed. I’d borrowed Mum’s mascara and red lipstick. I looked into the bathroom mirror ready to mould my face into something worth looking at. As I inspected my features I thought of Lara’s ability to look like a goddess without trying.

                She reminded me of Cameron Diaz. Perfect smile, dimples, and bright blue eyes. I sighed. I didn’t need to be good looking or even attractive, but anything was better than my flat cheeks, green lifeless eyes, untidy eyebrows, thin lips and small mouth.

A strange tingling sensation spread through my face as if I’d been injected with Novocaine. The tingling turned to a burn. I placed the palms on my cheeks trying to cool my skin wondering if I’d had an allergic reaction to my foundation. I was about to wash it off when I thought I saw my face shift. I blinked and peered closer to the mirror. I gaped at the corners of my mouth turning upwards. I pressed my fingertips to feel them. My lips thickened and my eyebrows thinned and morphed into the usually desired upside down v-shape. What was going on? After the burning sensations stopped I turned my face on an angle inspecting my altered features, my face was almost pleasant to look at.

“Okay, relax!” I said taking a deep breath. Could I be dreaming? I pinched myself ouch definitely not dreaming. I closed my eyes, looked away from the mirror and shook my head as if I was trying to reset a Magna Doodle. I opened them again, slowly. The changes were permanent. I didn’t understand, I mean, I’d always enjoyed reading sci-fi and fantasy books that contained werewolves, shape shifters, mutants and futuristic beings that could alter their appearance at will. But this was reality, the real world. Stuff like this just didn’t happen, ever. If I had done this with my mind, then what else could I do? Would I have to be extra careful if I suddenly desired large boobs or long model-like legs. Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad. The legs that is. Would money fall out the sky just because I wanted it to happen? I decided to test out my theory – couldn’t hurt right? I focused on my eyes, I’d always thought if I had dark brown eyes it would match my dark brown hair. Staring at my reflection I imagine that the green of my iris turning into a mud brown – nothing. I tried wishing for them to turn brown – still nothing. Maybe I had imagined it after all, maybe I’d always looked this way and I’d imagined my face morphing.

I looked at my mother’s makeup kit beside me; the tube of bright red lipstick called to me. I picked it up and ran the smooth curve along my soft lips. They were full enough to make Angelina Jolie look at me sideways.

Wow, I thought taking a step back. My lips were plump and moist, the kind you saw on L’Oreal ads. I looked at my clock; 6:30pm. I grabbed my iphone and rang Will.

“Hey, you ready yet?”

“Nah Soph, just having a study break… but I’m just about to get in the shower, give me fifteen.”

“Fifteen minutes? What do you plan to do in there Will? Ahah! You’re playing computer games aren’t you?” Even though Will couldn’t see me I put one hand on my hip emphasising I was right, if he wasn’t working on his formulas and school work, he was conquering the vibrant game of World of Warcraft.

“Nah,” he said unconvincingly. I laughed at him. “You’re sounding heaps better Soph… anymore weird stuff?” And I heard the clangs of sword fight in the background.

“Nothing bad has happened, no,” I said. Well that wasn’t exactly a lie. My full lips were an improvement I thought.

“You better be ready when I get there,” I threatened.

“Crap, getting slaughtered here. See ya.” He hung up.

After flicking the light off in the bathroom I stepped briskly towards my desk. I typed in ‘premonitions’ into Google. Wikipedia hit the top spot as always calling it ‘precognition’. It didn’t tell me much that I didn’t already know, however it said in one study 10% of dream premonitions came true. Next I typed in ‘telepathy’ and lots of resourceful links came up in the category of parapsychology. People had claimed to be able to read others thoughts but parapsychology wasn’t accepted by the scientific community – no surprised there. So far, telepathy could only be achieved with a mind link to a computer. But I did find something on ‘emotional telepathy’ where a person could feel the emotions of someone else like a kind of meta-empathy.