I’ve already confessed my odd habit of painting BVM statues, which is why I have Laboratory Mary in my backyard. She helps test the endurance of paints and glues in harsh weather.
There are two chunks of broken mirror glued to Lab Mary’s back, exaggerated wings for an abstract dove. The backs of the wings show in the front, so I tried gluing shards to suggest feathers. It didn’t look right, but that’s why she’s Lab Mary.
The lizards climb everywhere. Today, a big male brown anole – a knight, the intenets suggests – sat on Lab Mary’s shoulder and damn if there wasn’t a big brown lizard staring right back at him. The real lizard bobbed and that other lizard did exactly the same thing!
The knight leaped up to dangle over the edge of a mirror wing, ready to battle the enormous and handsome devil who was taunting below. Except, he was gone. Gone!
He dropped down to Lab Mary’s concrete shoulder and the bastard was back! Right there! Glaring into the mirror fragments, he flexed through a scary set of push-ups. His opponent matched him move for move. He jumped back to the wing and looked down. Chicken shit! He’s hiding!
Back to Lab Mary’s shoulder he went. In the mirror, the other lizard mocked. When he jumped up to fight, lizard – o – lizard, nada.
I gave up after watching him repeat the cycle thirteen times. Thirteen. But this scenario was played out before me, so I had to wonder about the lesson: who, or what, is my imaginary enemy in the mirror?