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He creaked, moved his tall, thin frame agitatedly towards the bleak, dank hallway. Could have done with more to eat, he thought, filling the pockets of his threadbare, once pristine, evening jacket.

Peeling brown wallpaper bulged wetly around the massive front door. It didn’t matter; no one ever called any more. The

old-fashioned telephone stood alone on the ancient table, both of them vying for ‘dust of the year’ award.

The old, warped, brown spotted mirror spitefully forced him to move closer. It studied him, malevolently etching every feature of the hawklike nose, bleak expressionless eyes and flintlike face. As Casper stared into the mottled glass his brother’s voice chuckled behind him.

‘Well, well. Not a pretty boy anymore brother! I think we should have another snort of this lovely stuff and just float off into the past again. What do you say then?’

From the bulging pouch at his waist Pearce extracted the red tin.

Casper did not turn; he simply stared into the mirror at his brother’s round creased face. Funny how they were so different. He a scarecrow of a man; Pearce a small, rotund bright-eyed chap. A sort of Friar Tuck really, with those laughter lines around those green eyes and a smiling generous mouth. How did he manage to stay so fat, Casper wondered. While he stayed exactly the same, Pearce got fatter and fatter. They breathed the fine dust into eager nostrils and joined each other behind the sly old glass. It knew their secret. Didn’t it wait for them every day, swallowing them together into that …other place?

The grass was always green there. Warm sunshine brought happiness and birds sang. Every day they went outside through the mirror on the wall. ‘How long could they stay in the place behind the glass, Casper wondered?’ Pearce was angry when he asked that question. ‘Shut your mouth, you ungrateful thing. You’re getting too big for your boots; it’s not your place to think.’ Yes…Pearce was getting very aggressive; he’d have to do something about that. How would Pearce feel if he stepped out of the mirror first? A feeling of glee began to spread throughout his stick thin body. It was nice to feel warm; a new, pleasant tingling sensation which made him feel…yes, happy! Carefully, deliberately, he put one long spindly leg out of the mirror, then slowly another.

He did not expect the shove at his back, the leg which tripped him head over heels until he was a tangle of limbs in the corner behind the great black door to the outside world.

Pearce could not stop. Years of hatred for the long thin rack of bones stirred and stoked an inner fire which drove and consumed him. He hacked and kicked and broke the thing which haunted him, leaving a thousand broken pieces in the dark, brooding corner.

Carefully averting his eyes from the jangle of limbs, Pearce drew the big door open a crack. Easing his stiff limbs round the door and onto the porch, he took a tentative step out into sunshine. Blinking at the light, he took a deep breath and trailed his hand along the outside wall.

At the large window, curtained over from the inside, he saw an old, wrinkled man stare back at him. Panic at the size of the outside world made him turn to retrace his steps. There was nowhere to go.

‘Oh there you are! Got a registered letter sir. Please sign here.’ A smiling young woman offered him the weekly packet. Pearce took the proffered book and signed.

‘Gosh! So you really are the great Marvello, the magician! My grandma said you were the best music hall turn she had ever seen! Would it be possible to have your autograph? She would be thrilled.’

So he was still remembered, then!

‘That is kind of you to say so. Oh yes, we travelled the world, Casper and me. Paris, New York, even Tokyo!’ Pearce signed the card with a flourish.

‘It’s a pity Casper isn’t here. He was the best ventriloquists dummy there ever was…but, of course…I don’t have him any more.,

by Gladys Taylor