I Must Obey You, Girl in the Mirror…
Back when I was a wee lad, I never lost my temper. I never accidentally stabbed my sister with a metal badge in the shape of a thumb.1 I never did anything wrong. Ever.
There was, however, a small boy – coincidentally looking just like me and living in our house – who'd frequently commit acts of naughty badness. His name was "Jivvy", and he'd routinely depart the scene of various crimes just as I arrived. Leaving me to clean up his mess and take the rap for his indiscretions. Damn imaginary bastard.
In young Mia Blake – put-upon protagonist of Jinty's "Slave of the Mirror" (1974) – I recognise a kindred spirit. While slaving, skivvy-like, in the attic of her sister Janet's Cornwall boarding house, she stumbles across an antique mirror. An antique mirror in which a leering, diabolic face is reflected back.
A diabolic face whose penetrating gaze decides (just for yuks, presumably) to crush her will and force her to commit anti-social acts of boarding-house-destroying eeeevilll. She tries her best to resist…
…with mixed results.
Her sis, noticing this abrupt change in young Mia's attitude, decides to cheer her up…by nailing the devil mirror to her bedroom wall. Oh dear.
We've all been there. We've all told ourselves, "I'll never let demonic faces in mirrors (that no-one else can see but me) tell me what to do again. I'll kick the habit. Cold turkey". But then…you're up late. You're bored. You think, "One more quick look can't hurt". And then…
It cannot be defeated. It cannot be reasoned with. It wants nothing less than to devour, digest, and then shit out our souls (while adversely affecting the reputation of a seaside guest house). This is why I haven't stared into a mirror for 30 years. Jivvy lives there. And I must obey him…
- This was one of the great tragic misunderstandings of my childhood. After one of my daily shouting matches with said sister, I (somewhat unusually) felt bad. "I know", I thought, "I'll offer her an olive branch. I'll give her a gift". The most kingly gift I could think of was a metal badge that had come free with one of that week's comics. It was in the shape of a "thumbs up" hand. I sat my sister down on the stairs and said "Close your eyes and do a thumbs up". This she did (suspiciously), upon which I produced the badge (hidden behind my back) with a flourish. So much of a flourish that the badge's pin jammed straight into her up-pointing thumb. And stayed there…as we both stared, disbelievingly, at the sight. Her thumb pierced by a small metal thumb. Shrieking and wailing followed. As I tried desperately to explain my good intentions…and how it had all gone horribly, nightmarishly wrong. [back]
November 30, 2010
7 responses to I Must Obey You, Girl in the Mirror…
What is with girls comics and distorted reflections in the mirror? They cannot get enough of the self hating. They’re like illustrated Daily Mails.
I remember watching a weird ’70s movie along these lines as a child except it was a boy and the reflection made him do aaaaawful things with a hammer. The Mirror Boy broke out and trapped the Real Boy in the mirror. It absolutely terrified me. Mirrors are scary enough at the best of times!
Odds are that this (like most girls’ comic tales) was written by a man. Make of that what you will.
There’s a terrifying segment in Dead of Night (http://tinyurl.com/3bkzwl) where a woman buys her fiancée an antique mirror. When he looks in, he sees himself…in a different room. An ornate and suffocating and dread-filled room. That begins to drive him mad and drive him to murder. It’s deeply freaky.
The other stories sharing Jinty space with “Slave of the Mirror”…
“Always Together” – Orphaned youngsters Jill, Johnny and Beth Harvey have (since their mother’s death) been living a grim life in a cave. To avoid being split up and sent to different homes by heartless authorities.
“Merry at Misery House” – “In 1920, Merry Summers had been wrongfully sent to Sombre Manor, a cruel reformatory better known as Misery House”.
“Prisoners of Paradise Island” – “Captain Sally Tuff and Marsfield School hockey team had been kidnapped and taken to Paradise Island, which was owned by Miss Lush. Keeping the girls in luxury, Miss Lush promised to make them the greatest hockey team ever…”
“The Kat and Mouse Game” – At Barton Grange Ballet School, Kat, aho is thoroughly selfish, dominates shy Letitia and nicknames her “Mouse”. Trying to keep Mouse as her willing slave…”
“Dora Dogsbody” – “Dora Watson was a servant in a luxury hotel for dogs…”
Sweet Jesus! It’s wall-to-wall miserableness, enslavement, imprisonment and domination! Oh and Merry Summers is the best name ever! For a character who’s endlessly brutalised.
I dunno, Paradise Island doesn’t sound so bad…
Well, as it turns out Miss Lush is pampering them so they’ll become fat and lose the “International Championship”, allowing her to collect “a fortune on bets placed on rival teams”!
So brave little Sally Tuff has to try and fight this plan and keep her team-mates from pigging out on cake too much.
There’s a whole, disturbing bulimia subtext thing going on…
Wow, that is disturbing…