MIRROR
(5ft. X 5ft., Oil on Canvas)
This painting depicts a reflection of a man in the side mirror of a car. It is standing in the middle of the road.
Mom urged me to go home and take a rest. The dawn completely invaded the sky when I reached the house. As my whole body slumped over my bed, my eyes voluntarily closed...
In the side mirror, I saw the reflection of a man standing in the middle of the road. He sprinted to us. I told the driver to make the speed of the car faster, but the man was so fast that he even reached us and got in our front. He slapped the car's hood, stopping the vehicle. The driver's head hit the steering wheel, blood dripping from his forehead. Mom in the passenger seat got unconscious, too. Beside her was Chloe who had been unconscious because of heart attack.
The man unlocked the door behind, lifted up Chloe, and walked away. I came out and staggered toward him. Before I could reach him, he turned around. I saw a familiar face who I caught watching us often — the gardener. His bloodshot eyes were staring straight at me.
"Why are you doing this to us?" I shouted.
Using only his one hand, he pushed me so hard that my back plummeted to the ground....
I found myself lying on the floor. I felt pain, realizing that I'd fallen from my bed.
"What a terrible dream," I said, catching my breath.
It was already past noon. I readied myself to go back to the hospital. When the car's engine groaned, the guard opened the gate. On the other side of the road, the gardener was pruning a huddle of plants in their front yard. Due to my dream a while ago, I'd had a bad vibe to him. I let the car's window slide down.
"Have you seen that man if he was doing something strange?" I asked the guard, my index finger pointing at the gardener.
"No, sir... but a while ago, he asked me what'd happened this morning."
"Did you tell him?"
"I'm sorry but—"
"So you told him."
I steered the car in front of the house on the other side of the road. I pushed the horn button to grab the gardener's attention.
"Mister!" I shouted in an angry tone. "Whatever is happening in my family, it is entirely out of your concern."
He didn't say anything. Instead, he resumed pruning and it exasperated me.
"What? Aren't you going to say anything?" I uttered while fastening my seatbelt.
"You're not like Chloe," he said, not facing me. "She's a good person. Good that she's not really your sister."
I was about to roll up the window, when I grasped something about what he had said.
"How did you know that she's not really my sister?" I asked.
He paused for a while, then spoke placidly, "You heard me wrong, boy."
I unfastened the seatbelt, stepped out the car, and confronted him.
"I know now the truth," I said. "I believe you know something. Are you the one who put Chloe in front of our house twenty years ago? Are you her real father?"
YOU ARE READING
A Forbidden Love
RomanceWhat if one day when you wake up you realize you are falling in love with your own sister? Chleo Solaire is a young contemporary artist whose dream is finally fulfilled when he had his first ever solo exhibit of his paintings. But no one knows that...
