Tracie Adams
Invisible Me
My iPhone wants a password. It demands proof of my identity. It doesn’t recognize the crone I see in the mirror, the old woman with the same green eyes whose smiling lips are thin now. She stares back at me, and I know my smart phone is justified in trying to protect my privacy from this stranger. Leaning in, squinting, I lift my chin and examine the stranger from different angles. Pulling the skin of my sagging neck tight, the jowls lift and younger me is back. This version of the woman in the mirror resembles someone I once knew. Releasing the loose skin, the crone returns and I ask her in a bewildered voice, “Who are you?”
My phone buzzes on the marble countertop. I raise the screen, tilting it toward me to see the incoming text, momentarily forgetting the stranger in the mirror. It happens again. “FACE NOT RECOGNIZED” it declares, accusing me of identity theft. “TRY AGAIN,” it taunts. So I lift my chin, removing the reading glasses that make my eyes bulge cartoonishly. I pull the waddle of my sagging neck tight, and I’m rewarded with access to all the files, all the apps, all the photos of a woman I used to know. In the photos, she is powerful, beaming with radiance and strength. I remember her with fondness and sadness.
I read the text on the phone. The daughter of my friend who passed away is sending me photos of her baby. Her text is full of gratitude for my love and support. We text back and forth about something she needs a mother for, and I do the best I can to share wisdom and encouragement like my friend would do if she were here. I put the phone down and look back in the mirror. The woman staring back at me is smiling now. She is transfigured, softer, stronger. The crinkled lines beside her eyes reveal transcendent power, wisdom earned and celebrated, strength in renewed purpose. I walk away from the phone with the energy of a tiger on the prowl. I am seen, known, and loved. I am beautiful.
Tracie Adams is a writer and teacher in rural Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Raven’s Perch, Anodyne Magazine, The Write Launch, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Bodega, Sheepshead Review and others. Read her work at tracieadamswrites.com. Follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.
