Fear, Mixed Media

Written By Kaitlin Milliken-Flohr

She used to brush my hair. Mom running my fine strands between boar bristles, ever so gently. In the morning, she twisted sections into braids. At night, she dragged her fingers through to undo her work. We rarely touched. When she grazed my scalp, the warmth washed over me in waves.

After she finished, she would sit next to me on the bench in front of her mirrorless vanity, a wordless acknowledgement that it was time to switch. I’d take the brush and circle behind her.

I tried to be gentle.

At the end, she would always ask, “How do I look?”

“Perfect,” I would say, meaning it each time.

Through appraisal, we took care of each other. We checked our hair and queried our outfits. I often applied her makeup. My entire childhood, I trusted her more than my own eyes.

One summer, when I was 13, Mom disappeared.

Without an explanation from Dad, I was left to navigate the gaps in my care. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the only one in the house. I reviewed myself with the critical gaze I reserved for her.

I saw the sprawling birthmark across my cheek. Greasy, flat hair. The soft pillow of a stomach that I could never shake. Rough patches of skin near my hairline. The longer I stared, the more I could find to pick apart. Minutes faded into hours, and soon, I had spent half the day entranced by my ugliness.

On the 28th day, her kettle whistled in my dreams. I knew immediately she was home.

And there she was, at her vanity, a cup of genmaicha between her hands. I dropped to my knees and wailed for her, crawling across the carpet until I could finally put my head in her lap. She limply accepted the contact.

Once I stopped sobbing, I held out our brush as an offering. Instead, she helped me onto the bench and reached for the scissors. I had matts up to the roots. Wordlessly, she cut. Then, she shaved. Her feedback, a simple “it’s done.” After, she sat beside me on the bench, and we switched.

I brushed her hair that day and every day after that. She never brushed my hair again.

*

I kept the pixie cut. I loved how streamlined the chop made my day. I could preen by touch, only using the mirror when cutting unruly, new growth. When I could finally afford a stylist, he said the look didn’t suit me. I told him that all I wanted was an even hand. I just needed to look less patchy and professional enough for the office. I wasn’t paying him to look good. I was paying him so I didn’t have to look at all.

Gazing at my reflection reminded me of lonely, self-sufficient summers. I avoided mirrors as often as possible. In college, I ripped the reflective surfaces out of compacts. When I tiptoed to the bathroom, my gaze held steadfast toward the sink. Sometimes, I would glance up and catch my eyes. They sank into their sockets.

I let myself be photographed, but never held on to the images — digital or otherwise. I couldn’t tell you if I was big or small. How much I weighed. What my hair texture really was or if it shined.

And yet, I drew self-portraits. After my days designing pitch decks and ebooks, I sketched my imagined form. On paper, I looked however I felt. I found comfort in the structure. I centered my life around the routine. My room remained spartan with only a desk and a bed. All I needed was one station for creativity and the other for rest.

I could have done this forever if not for Liz. Liz and I met at USC during an art history class. She always kicked off discussions during lectures. I always borrowed her notes. Back then, she wanted to curate for galleries, a dream she eventually fulfilled at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

When we lived together, she was the most respectful of my regimented life. I ate two eggs and a seltzer daily with dinner. If Liz ever borrowed from my side of the fridge, the missing items were restocked the next day.

Over the years, the basis of our friendship shifted toward art. In our shared apartment, Liz read the trades while I drew from my spot at the coffee table. She peered over my shoulder on occasion. Three years into the exercise, she recommended that I display my art at our local community center. When she did have something to say, I valued her opinion.

I was surprised when Liz asked me to be a part of her bridal party. She had a caring and warm personality, one that attracted friends in flocks. The idea of being in front of a crowd made my heart race, but Liz was the type of person to whom it hurt to say “no.”

Pomp is woven into the fabric of weddings. We would sit in chairs wearing mass-produced silk robes, applying matching makeup under vanity lights. I was determined to participate in the ritual with a straight face. Which meant practice. A carefully executed, self-inflicted exposure therapy.

Before my first session, I stopped by the liquor store across the street to purchase a handle of vodka and a shot glass. The liquid burned as it dripped down my throat. Warmth radiated from my stomach. Then, I proceeded to the bathroom.

Wrestling the peel-and-stick vinyl off the mirror almost proved to be a worthy distraction. When I finally got the adhesive to lift, I pulled swiftly, like ripping off a band-aid.

A sharp inhale became ragged breathing. My eyes were plastered to a spot just over my shoulder. Scar tissue ran along the back of my skull, separating, then morphing into a new form.

A second me.

Our hair merged into one black mass, but our heads ruptured into two distinct globes.

This version of me looked like a crudely done rendition. There was an uncanny similarity, but the differences were more unsettling.

Her skin ran cool, gray and flaky. Instead of proper eyes, there was a vacant blackness.

Her smile pulled wide. No matter how my expression shifted, her teeth remained bare, muscles pulled tightly.

My hand shot over my shoulder and cut through. There was no physical manifestation, but the reflection was clear.

I closed my eyes, reached for the hanging vinyl, and pressed it back into place by touch. I took two more shots and sat on the couch. My head spun. I went for another. I emptied the contents of my stomach into the sink.

Liz’s wedding eventually rolled around. I personally paid for a beautician, who eagerly set to work. When it was my turn, I closed my eyes and looked away when presented with an opportunity to see my own reflection.

A month after Liz’s wedding, I got the courage to revisit the mirror. I ordered a handheld one on Amazon. If I was overwhelmed, I could throw it out the window.

My hands shook as I dug through the unnecessary amount of packing material. My fingers wrapped around the plastic. I squeezed my eyes and lifted the mirror. I inhaled, counted to three, and looked.

The hyperventilating began. My last encounter was not a hallucination or a nightmare.

The attachment — a tumor, a parasite — was still there. It held the same wicked smile with eyes that pulled me in.

I tilted the mirror toward the floor. Its skin was completely exposed. I took off my clothes. As suspected, we had the same body. Its stretch marks were in all the same places. Its just bulged and pulsed a deep crimson.

*

In the loosest of terms, we were both artists. My mom and I at the kitchen table, working on our different projects. Her with watercolor. Me with crayon, then colored pencils, acrylics, and gouache. She had well-held barriers. We only connected in the artistic realm.

Or rather, I met her there. She had painted long before I was born. She transformed blank pages into the cityscapes of a country left behind. She drew a specific Tokyo, a version rife with the growing pains of urbanization. I scribbled the trees in our backyard until I filled out my world with perspective and anatomy.

In my earliest memories, I reached up to her with a paper for her approval. She responded with a once-over and a smile before returning to her work. Much of her process was spent scrutinizing, looking for the odd place where an additional brush stroke would realize the vision.

She painted less after her return. Watercolors were reserved for good days. On others, she sketched crudely. The tall buildings and cherry blossoms were replaced by humanoid shapes with rough edges.

Then, there were the empty periods, weeks or months where her output dwindled. Those were the times when she poured over my creations, always searching for meaning. I’d come home from school, and she would accost me. Why did I choose the colors and subject? What patterns tied these images together? Her eyes were desperate, as if she could only understand her world through my lens.

I never had the answers she wanted, but I left my work for her to find.

*

The vision lingered. I found my mind drifting at work. My sketches featured neoplastic mounds of flesh. My gaze crept toward reflective surfaces in curiosity, unsure of what I would see.

I hoped that a head-on confrontation would resolve the issue. I bought a full-length mirror. I placed it in the center of my room, followed by a folding chair. It was still there, looming larger.

I stared, transfixed. Not at myself, but at it.

Then, it spoke. That may be too generous of a term. It emitted a pained breathing accompanied by animalistic growls. Whenever I needed to focus or sleep or perform any regular life function, the noise would get louder.

Sometimes, I could make out a sentence. Even as it chided me, its mouth never moved. I should rip off my skin, it would say. Walk into the ocean. Crash my car on the highway. Light my apartment on fire.

Other times, it would laugh, a sound somewhere between a wheeze and a shriek. In every instance, undeniably cruel. Most of the time, these sounds overlapped, like a radio picking up several frequencies at once.

I could make it stop in two ways. One, I could look directly into its eyes. If we connected in the mirror, the sounds would stop. Two, I could draw, but only if I drew us.

Thus began a new ritual, a last-ditch effort to compartmentalize my life. As soon as the work day was done, I would return home and spread my art supplies over the floor. I worked voraciously, finishing one rendition and moving onto the next. Later, I started to work on three portraits at a time — then four, five, more.

My tumor and I would appear as a quick gesture sketch. We were an abstract composed of a nearly entirely black palette. We were a photo-realistic colored pencil drawing, even if my second self could not be captured on film.

I ate sparsely while I worked. I paused only long enough to toss a salad, boil top ramen, or fry an egg. I worked through physical discomfort. Pain pulsed through me indiscriminately. I hurt a little everywhere — my knees from hours on the hardwood, my back from hunching, my head from sleepless nights. However, the worst sensation was the searing feeling that ran down my left side, from head to toe, right where it was attached to my body.

Over time, the sounds got louder whenever I wasn’t creating. I put a small mirror on my work desk, so I could peek and sketch throughout my shift. If I stopped, it screamed. My pain flared.

*

I called out sick from the office, at first a few times a week, then more and more frequently. I need the salve of steady work to keep my body habitable. As my output grew, my apartment became a shrine to my demon. I pinned every completed image to the wall. Paper depictions of us covered every inch, three layers deep.

I avoided psychiatrists. I suspected that my description would get me more than a note.

Instead, I’d get a haunting diagnosis. With that label, my autonomy would slowly erode. They may not even let me go home, leaving me trapped in grating agony.

I decided no doctors. No conservators. No signatories on my behalf. Which meant no excused absences or long-term leave. My PTO would run out sooner rather than later. So, I stopped going to work. I had probably gotten fired. I never checked.

I rarely left the house. Liz was my only connection to the world outside. She always checked in. She sent links to exhibits I would like.

This reminds me of you, she would write. What can I do to get you to submit?

She always pushed me, not toward what she wanted but in the direction I wanted to go.

Liz had the connections. She always knew who had a call out for local artists. I could make a few sales, she said, gain some traction. That would be my first step to moving up, a process she could shepherd me along.

Each time, I shrugged it off. I told her that I’d do it one day. After I had time for more research. Once I came up with a more original premise. There was always a reason to wait until the deadline was long gone.

She had become accustomed to the reluctance disguised as nonchalance. But, my newfound hermetic life was new.

I had been dodging suggested meetups, and she noticed. Liz swore she wasn’t my keeper, but I knew her drop-in was inevitable. To buy myself time, I told her I was in the middle of a project. A big one. Something secretive. The type of thing she had been hoping I’d make for years.

That was partially true. The more elaborate my rendition, the more the pain dulled. I hoped that an ambitious creation would free me.

I borrowed a camera and tripod from an old coworker in North Hollywood. I stripped down completely naked and sat in the chair. In between each shot, I set a timer and shifted my operation slightly to the right until the circle was complete.

I had captured my body from every angle. That was the first time in months I had seen myself completely alone. It didn’t hang over my shoulder, deforming us both. I didn’t realize I was crying until I could see the tears hit my keyboard.

I cast my body alone into plaster, using my photographs as reference. The statue and I curved at the same places.

As I worked, she raged. The half of my body she attached to seared with invisible third-degree burns. She shrieked and moaned, hurling the worst of her threats.

Cut off your hands, she said. Jump out the window. Kill yourself.

Her skin and muscles weighed me down as I worked. She wanted attention. She begged me to look and create in her image. I could feel her pulling me back. I put all of my strength into making progress, laying plaster-coated bandages one over the other.

While the plaster hardened, I moved closer to the mirror. I turned the floor into a palette, mixing her grayscale. Then, I painted her directly on the glass. I knew the curve of every jagged tooth, the dark circle of her eye sockets. Her depiction was proportionate to the sculpture, sitting right above its shoulder.

With each stroke over the reflective surface, the pain cooled until it turned into a low, tolerable pulsing. The shrieks transformed into a low hum. I could still hear it, but I could also hear my thoughts for the first time in weeks.

I pulled my pillow onto the floor. I laid there, in between the central pieces of my work, falling quietly into darkness.

*

Before I left for LA, my dad sat me down. He tried to convince me to stay in Michigan. He used Mom as leverage, bringing up her hallucinations as if I didn’t already know. I was the one she came to, wide-eyed, garbling in a language that I didn’t understand. I came home from school to find her cowering in the back corner of her armoire. I was the one who coaxed her out.

I knew why he wanted me to stay. He couldn’t afford the care she needed. After he was let go, the out-of-pocket skyrocketed. Even a short inpatient stay would cripple us financially. She was breaking with reality more frequently and for longer stretches. He said home was where I was needed.

I never gave him an answer, but I considered taking a leave. I spent the summer at home, dutifully caretaking to simulate the experience. Maybe I could handle the responsibility. I could transfer to a program close by and take night classes.

Midway through August, Mom had her worst day. I came back from the grocery store to screaming. Mom was in the kitchen, the neck of her shirt stretched around her shoulders, with fabric already stained.

She had taken kitchen shears to her scalp. She cut patches from one side of her head, slicing into her flesh. At least, that’s what I assumed. I found her sitting on the floor clawing at her skin. Her nails were bloody, a layer already underneath. She scratched from her temple down to her shoulder, again and again.

I tried to restrain her, but she pushed me off. She scrambled to her feet. She eluded me every time I lunged for her. She screamed at me. When she reached for the scissors, I barely beat her to them. I chased her out of the kitchen, away from our sharpest objects. Then, I gave up. I dialed 9-1-1. The EMTs restrained her, and she was placed on a 72-hour involuntary hold.

I waited for her to come back. I wanted one last good day. I settled for good enough. She still glanced over her shoulder erratically. She soothed herself in hushed tones often, speaking to no one. Her eyes stayed afraid.

I brushed her hair and made her tea. We sat together at dinner, even if I was really sitting alone. I sent Mom to bed with her sedatives. I took one last look at her as she drifted to sleep, so I could remember her face at peace.

Then, I drove west.

*

After I awoke, the sounds amplified with each passing minute. The respite was slipping through my fingers. I finished my piece with a recording — something to tell the story of the manifestation, which is also the story of me.

I left my laptop open with a sticky note that instructed Liz to hit play. When she came to my apartment, she would know everything, except for where I went. My secret would be out: I was sick or haunted, undeniably damaged and gone.

If you’re listening to this, that means I did it. Liz found my goodbye and immortalized it in some way.

I want my room recreated exactly how it was found. Make my portion of the gallery the same dimensions as my studio. Tape the drawings to the walls in the same order, overlapping as I hung them. Get every detail right, from the paint stains on the floor to the number of inches that separate my sculpture and mirror.

Play this recording as people walk around the space. Put it all out there, so they can remember that I was here. I was crazy and inconsequential, but I was here.

And, Liz. Oh god, Liz. I’m sorry. Whatever you sell this for, if you sell it, the money is yours. Just don’t look for me. Please.

Kaitlin Milliken-Flohr is a writer and zine maker. She previously worked as a journalist covering technology and business. She lives in San Jose, California with her husband, dog, and cat.