I flick the fly from my face and arms. Its incessant unhygienic search for moisture irritates and repulses me.
She does not flinch as flies crawl along her dry lips and tiptoe through her eyelashes.
I wish I’d managed to lose that excess weight.
She wishes she had enough food to fill her breasts with milk for her baby.
I wonder if I will ever have a child of my own.
She wonders if her child will live till tomorrow.
I wonder if I will ever have a man to share my life.
She wonders if a man would protect her from other men.
I wish my period wasn’t so heavy, worried the blood might spoil my new clothes.
She wishes she had sanitary towels; worried that she will be shunned as unclean when the blood soaks through the rags and spoils the cast-off clothes from the charity bags.
I wonder how I will pay for my parents’ care as they age.
She wonders, in her damp shelter, under grey skies, how to dry her parent’s urine soaked mattress and shame drenched eyes.
I wish she had a home like mine: cosy and safe, with nice things and friendly neighbours.
She wishes she was back in the home she left, with a roof and a floor and a kitchen and a bathroom, with her own country safe enough to live in.
I wonder what her job had been; if she had been like me once upon a time: educated, qualified, responsible, respected.
She wonders if anyone will ever recognise her worth and skills again.
I know I will never forget her face.
She knows she will never remember mine.
She is a mirror. Not because she looks like me, but because she makes me see myself: not as I want to be, but as I am: well-meaning, self-centred, pampered, rich, safe, ignorant, born in the right place at the right time. Taking my life for granted.
Words and photograph copyright 2016 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission