The Graveyard Letters

Book excerpt: …Nobody ever looked at your shoes when you were in the spotlight. The play featured on campus was A Midsummer Night's Dream. Two blue eyes returned to the mirror and admired themselves, admired what they had become. The cat stretched and rose from his sleeping spot. In one lean easy leap, he was up on the makeup table and rubbing his face against the tub of greasepaint. A small patch of mauve coloring spotted his chin and under his neck. He looked up sleepily at the actor, hoping for a rub, but was ignored. Chester sat and watched the actor primp before the mirror, his tail twitching every now and then, as if it were a fifth paw trying to find something to scratch. A steady hand picked up the book and held it close, then at arms length. The picture was one of John Keats drawn just before the poet's death. The face in the mirror was very close to being an imitation of the face in the book. Not perfect, but close enough. And as in all other aspects of human existence on this grand old world—the face in the mirror surmised—in the dark, close enough would do…