Very Short Story: Hijra

He looked in the cracked mirror and saw her. A copiously decorated woman. Her jet black eyes staring into his, her face dreamy, almost unreal, studded with pearly dark eyes that looked like stars, a big nose-ring resting like the moon on a cheek and red lips that gave the appearance of heavily bloodied rose petals.

But there was flaw, a crack in the mirror. A flaw which penetrated right through this extravagance, raping its beauty and her whole world seemed to be disappearing, squeezing into the nothingness of this crack. This crack had intimidated her for many years, just like the world, the duniya had outside it. But the duniya did more than just intimidation. It called her names, it beat her black and blue, it wanted to drag her inside its bloody teeth and devour her.

She wondered what would happen if her world collided with the duniya. A war –that would end in a little time –with her world defeated dead, or maybe the duniya enslaving her world like a savage.

But these thoughts had already transformed themselves into actuality and so she just smiled and looked outside the cracked mirror and saw him.