The Mira Side. Karla Popovic
Mr Reed,” Mira said flatly.
“Good job boys,” and he patted the side of her cubical.
He said that to her every time.
Editor-in-Chief joke.
But his darting eyes had zoned in on the new intern prey and he slid off.
Mira was glad to be completely off his radar. She shivered with disgust. There were advantages to being a shadow girl.
With no stomach to linger around and bare witness to Mr Reed hypnotise his fresh prey into submission at the water fountain, Mira packed up her desk quickly.
With gusto Mira scooped up her handbag and made for a great escape out the office glass doors.
She still had to get groceries on the way home. Mira briskly walked the two blocks from work to where her car was park, fishing in her handbag on the way for the shopping list Mum had given her earlier that morning. Mira’s hand eventually found it in the abyss of her bag, and she groaned. It was a hefty list.
Although Mira was tired and over the day, there was an upside to Mum giving her a novelette worth of items to pick up.
Mira really, really liked grocery stores. Maybe it was something to do with the intense fluro lights, or all the busy people; but it was the last place she was going to run into a ghost or a sprite or something. The energy just seemed too fast or too low. Spirit needs something to stick to, a magnet-like force of connection. The head on collision of that sterile environment of stacked rows of commodities, coupled with transient energy of people ploughing down isles with trollies, drove parallel lines where the physical and spiritual never quite stuck.
Grocery stores and graveyards - spirit energy zero.
Mira giggled at herself, daydreaming her imaginary dating profile.
I like long strolls along supermarket isles and through cemeteries.
Mira took her time down the isles, picking up and putting down five different shampoos before decided she didn’t need shampoo.
She slipped through the register with ease, making calm small talk about how busy it was and the weather outside with the cashier.
Outside misty rain had started to pitter-patter a haze on the world.
Mira shuffled to the car, wobbling around more bags than she could really carry. She plonked the groceries on the passenger seat and scuttled around to the driver’s side.
“I told you to watch where you put those pickled onions, I don’t like pickled onions.”
Mira jammed her eyes shut, “Really Mr Pickled Onions?”
“And stop calling me that,” the little gargoyle creature scowled up at her, flashing his azure eyes accusingly and rolling wrinkles even further across his face.
“It’s your name isn’t it?” Mira sighed, starting the car.
“You wanna talk kid?”
Mira shrugged.
“I know it feels like you’re being run over five ways by 15 different freight trains - but what’s the worst that can happen?”
Mira giggled a bit hysterically “Probably being run over seven ways by 18 different freight trains.”
“What I mean is, don’t over think it kiddo. Keep it all simple.”
“Oh yeah, and how do I do that?” Mira could feel tears starting to prickle her eyes. She wiped her drippy nose on her sleeve quickly.
“Do the job you set out to do.”
And Mr Pickled Onions was gone.
They all came, said what they had to say, and then they left. She felt the shifts every time.
“Do the job I set out to do,” Mira repeated it out loud, clutching for help.
Driving home in the misty rain, Mira sang along to Airplanes as it played on the radio.
Mira’s gut clenched tighter and tighter in a ball of strain the closer she got to home.
Fear is a trickster; she makes you believe you can hold her down in the same way you command your actions and words.
But the feelings are still there. And if you don’t confront fear face to face she’ll come at you in other ways.
There’s always a debt accumulated and fear collects payment with interest.
As Mira pulled into the carport, accruing more suppressed emotions for fear to later hold her with at ransom, she put her game face on.
Mira kicked at the front door with her foot, arms ladened almost above her head with groceries.
“Stop kicking the door dipshit! Dad’s trying to sleep,” Lai screeched like a cat in a scrap as she sent the door crashing open.
“Just take some things then,” Mira huffed, pushing through the door.
Grabbing two avocados off the top of Mira’s carefully balanced food mountain, Lai rolled her eyes in such exaggerated pain that Mira snickered.
“Mummmmmm! Mira’s teasing me again!” Lai continued her yowl as she stomped through the house.
Mira seesawed her way through the living room, trying to keep everything in her arms. Dad’s voice came rasping from the sofa in the corner “Hey darlin’.”
Mira instantly dropped everything in a rolling food cascade and leapt over to him.
She kissed his forehead. It was warm, too warm, but it was warm. Mira imprinted the memory forever.
“Hey Dad, guess what I’m making for dinner? Nachos and bean dip, and guacamole - the secret family recipe!” Mira’s eyes sparkled brightly.
She never wavered, not even a slight break in her tone. She couldn’t, because she wouldn’t have Dad see her as any less than a sure beacon of strength. She was his soldier, tireless in the fight. It was her promise and Mira was a promise keeper!
“Oh Mira!” Mum burst into the living room, picking up runaway avocados and bean tins. Mira dashed over and bent down to help. Mum wasn’t supposed to be putting pressure on her knees.
“Now be nice to Lai,” Mum whispered in staccato hits.
“I’ll pick up the groceries Ma,” Mira protested, but Mum wasn’t finished.
“She’s only 13, you’re 24. I expect you to set a good example.”
“Ma, I’ve got the groceries!” Mira started snatching thing out of her hands.
But Mum snatched them back, “I don’t think your father’s up to eating too much tonight. He’s had a bad day darling…” The worry lines that dug deep between Mum’s brows broke Mira’s heart. She desperately wanted to rub them gently away but they’d never be gone, ever again.
So Mira gave what she could - enduring happy strength.
“We haven’t had nachos for dinner in years. Remember when me and Lai would sit on the bench in our nighties on a Saturday night and stuff our faces? I’d eat all the guacamole and Lai refused to eat any of it, except the plain chips.”
Mira kept it up flawlessly, the bright strong warrior act.
“I remember,” and Mum threw her arms around Mira.
“Thank you darling. I couldn’t get through this without you.” Mira could feel Mum’s fragile frame tremor, she’d lost so much weight.
“Stronger together eh Ma?” Mira said with just the right amount of dismissive grit to yank Mum out of the spiralling whirlpool of devastation that hovered ever-near and hungry these days.
With sincere gusto Mira dove into cooking dinner. She made the hero dish just like Dad always