Caleigh Crow's reflects on a town where the sun is a 20-foot-tall mirror
Old Little Sister is a short story by the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award drama winner
Old Little Sister is an original short story by Caleigh Crow. It is part of Mirrors, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts.
Caleigh told CBC Books she was captivated by a small town in the Italian Alps, where a giant mirror on the mountainside reflects sunlight into the town square. For 83 days each winter, the town is shrouded in darkness. Inspired by their journey from shadow to light, Caleigh created her original work of evocative prose. When the mirror was unveiled, she imagined the townsfolk's reactions.
CBC's Radio One will host an episode featuring participants from this original series.
Crow won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for drama for the play There Is Violence and There Is Righteous Violence and There Is Death, or the Born-Again Crow.
You can read more works from the Mirrors series here.
Old Little Sister
When the day finally came to unveil the mirror, Gene was a nervous wreck, his stomach clenched, trying to hold in all the doubt he felt but could not let on. He felt like a fraud. He worried that the Creator was looking askance at him. Who was Gene to impose his will on the land?
The whole town gathered in the paved central square, all 172 of them. Gene was reminded how few families remained. Mostly young people left in search of — what else — work and society and never returned except to visit and share their worldly wisdom with the townies who remained. Like his sister Junie.
"This is wrong," she said.
"You haven't even been here," he spat. "You don't remember what it's like."
It was true that Junie didn't remember what it was like to spend 83 days without any direct sunlight. The solution the town came up with was to build a twenty-foot-tall mirror on the mountainside.
"There's some stuff you just have to learn to live with," she lit a cigarette. "Actually, maybe it's the gift of living here."
Gene: "The gift? Junie, come on."
Junie: "It'll be fake sunlight."
Junie was always an advocate for the natural, for the authentic, the real. But there was a sharpness to the way she said fake that hadn't been there before. It had been a hard year for her: a fire destroyed her house, and then her husband destroyed their marriage.
Gene observed a thin stripe of greying hair on the right side of her part and the wrinkles at the corners of her mouth that had deepened even in the five years since they last were together, in person, here in their hometown. Five years?
It had been a hard year for her: a fire destroyed her house, and then her husband destroyed their marriage.
He looked at her again, more zoomed out. She really looked older. She was more stooped, more round, less elastic.
Christ, I probably look the same, he thought. All grey and wrinkled. Probably even more aged since Gene is 9 years older than Junie.
Gene: "You just think people have to earn everything."
Junie: "We do."
Gene: "It will help people cope."
Junie shrugged. "It will be fake coping."
"It's real sunlight," Rachel Ramsay, head engineer of the project and another non-local, interjected.
Junie: "You can't read in a mirror."
Rachel: "What's reflected in a mirror is a matter of your own perspective. You don't need a mirror to make writing backwards, all you need to do is shine a light behind the paper and read it from the other side. It's two-dimensional."
"But it doesn't show things properly in three dimensions either, does it," Junie pushed, "when I raise my left hand in a mirror —"
"It appears as though your right hand is raised," Rachel interrupted. "Yes, yes, but that is an illusion. That person doesn't exist. There is, of course, only one of you, with your left hand raised."
"But how?" Gene asked.
"Illusions can be very powerful. Your brain is easily tricked," Rachel replied.
"Exactly," Junie said, sulking, "We're saying the same thing."
Gene stepped onto a makeshift pallet platform with a megaphone and instructed everyone to look at their feet, not the mirror. When everyone complied, he radioed to the engineers at the mountainside site and gave the signal.
In an instant, the square was illuminated. The light was pale, crooked and had vestigial colours at the edges. Gene looked down at the townsfolk who had worked hard to get this mirror because they missed the sun.
Someone was crying. It was Mrs. Daniels, whose son took his own life on the Winter solstice just last month.
Inside, she was thinking — It seems like we can change everything in the world except the fact that my son is never coming back.
In an instant, the square was illuminated. The light was pale, crooked and had vestigial colours at the edges.
Mr. Daniels put his arm around his wife. Inside, he was thinking — Maybe this will give us something warm to think about.
Gene said: "Hope this helps."
Junie rolled her eyes and stubbed out her cigarette.
And the snow started to melt.
About Caleigh Crow
Caleigh Crow is a queer Métis theatre artist from northeast Calgary. She is the co-founder and artistic lead of Thumbs Up Good Work Theatre.
About the series Mirrors
The English-language books that won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Awards demonstrate how stories help us reflect on our lives, understand ourselves more deeply and see the world in new ways.
CBC Books asked the winners to further explore the power of reflection in original works. The special series, themed around the theme of mirrors, challenges how we see ourselves and our society — unearthing hidden truths, exploring alternative identities and blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
Old Little Sister was Caleigh Crow's contribution to the series.
