The Mirror Cracked

Fanfiction
Title:	The Mirror Cracked
Author(s):	Augusta Elton
Date(s):	1988
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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The Mirror Cracked is a Kirk/Spock story by Augusta Elton.

It was published in the print zine Within the Mirror #1.

Summary

"M/U and A/U: Kirk yearns for the security he no longer has from his brain-damaged first officer."

Reactions and Reviews

1989

Augusta Elton's "The Mirror Crack'd," presents a very different pair [than the Kirk and Spock in Room 1442]. Their Mirror universe seems worse than some others, and they are correspondingly darker characters. Kirk is all but imprisoned by Spock, who, following a head injury, has become both insane and a drug addict. He is a killer. Their relationship is bitter and violent, and nothing else seems possible for them. But Elton's Mirror Kirk is no less ingenious than our Kirk, even if his ingenuity must take a strange turning (Rereading this paragraph, it sounds like the kind of story I wouldn't expect to like but I do like it, very much indeed.)

1991

This is a bizarre and confusing story made even more bizarre and confusing by the writing.

The story's starting premise is that the Mirror Kirk has essentially lost the command of his ship to Spock. Spock, however, is insane, and I don't just Bean a little bit. This Spock has more tics and twitches than Norman Bates. As far as that goes, Kirk himself appears to be on the nerve of a psychotic breakdown through much of the story. And as for plot, here it is: Spock makes Kirk kiss Spock's feet, Spock tries to rape Kirk, Kirk rapes Spock, Kirk kicks Spock in the head, Kirk throws coffee in Spock's face, Spock spills a glass of brandy, Kirk spills coffee in bed. There's more, but these are the high points.

Much of the time I found what was happening to be incomprehensible. I constantly had to back up and reread the whole paragraphs to figure out whether the characters were still in the same setting or had gone elsewhere, whether it was tomorrow or still today, whether what was being described was a fantasy in somebody's head or really happening, whether the story had suddenly entered a flashback. Example: at one point I thought that Lenore Karidian, whom Spock had killed and dumped on Kirk's bed, was still there, decomposing. But later on I decided that the recurrent references to the stench and all the flies was just some kind of flashback. The story also suffered from more typical problems. For instance, a fairly common problem in zine writing is that the writer will use "he" randomly between Kirk and Spock, causing the reader to become confused as to which "he" is being referred to. Usually this sort of ambiguity occurs only briefly. Not so in "The Mirror Cracked". It was so pervasive, that after awhile I gave up trying to figure out who "he" was.

Another distracting problem was the story's over-blown wordiness. The author also tended to misuse words. Kirk did things like "relapse" (collapse, maybe?) onto the floor. Spock did things like "swill" (I'm guessing swirl for this one! his brandy around in his glass. Spock also at one point, while being taunted by Kirk, tells Kirk in a "chattering tone" that he loves Kirk. Given the context in which Spock is speaking, I've got no clue to what a "chattering" tone is. These are just a few examples. The story, to the extent that there is one, is almost literally drowned out by the excessive wordiness and frequently bizarre choice of words.

It may be that somewhere in "The Mirror Cracked" there was the seed of decent story. Unfortunately, it would have taken not just major rewriting to reveal it, but starting all over again.

I feel the surreal quality of the writing is this story's greatest asset, yet the violence is stomach-turning. It's rare that I read a K/S story that haunts me for weeks, but this is one of these stories. I have always disliked torture and death stories, but "The Mirror Cracked" is beyond belief. Spock is given permission to murder innocent crew women. The fact that Spock was insane doesn't serve as an excuse for all the violence.

1992

This Mirror a/u death story is original and startling in its intensity. It's also very poetically written. Some fans may find it repellent, but I think that it follows one of the paths that these characters might take to its most likely end. The Aphrodite statue falling on Spock was a nice piece of symbolism -- even nicer that Spock had prevented it from falling on Kirk. I felt that this Spock wanted to be punished -- not only for his own crimes, but for Sarek's killing of Amanda. I can also see what drives this Kirk. Mainline Kirk loves risk. If this Mirror Kirk takes that tendency to an ultimate extreme, it's because behavior is more extreme in this universe. Danger is expected there, but love isn't. Love is terrifying because the experience of both of these men leads them to believe that it can only end in death. And they're right for that time and place. I felt that death was a gift for them because their lives were so intolerable.

2003

My first reaction after reading this story was to look for more written by this author. I wasn’t disappointed. Though her take on Kirk is way different from mine, I couldn’t help but be enthralled by the writing. In this story, obviously, Kirk is very different. He is alone and fighting to save himself from the clutches of the Empire. Spock, who had become a safe harbor, a trusted ally, is slowly going mad. A head injury sustained while saving his captain has damaged him beyond repair. The drug he takes to control some of the symptoms only makes it worse. The battles that ensue between them as they fight for supremacy are bitter. Kirk misses his friend, but hates the man he has become. Spock teeters between controlled lunacy and an almost pathetic need for Kirk. Yet somehow, the love they both feel is there, an undercurrent that brings them inevitably together.

Yet the battles still rage. And because in this universe the seminal fluid of a Vulcan works as an acid on human tissue, Spock can never enter Kirk, so will not bond with him. When Kirk finds out what pon farr implies, having seen in a meld how Spock’s mother died, he sees a way out for both of them. He forces a bond by denying Spock the drug he needs until Spock relents, knowing that, by bonding, the Vulcan will be forced to take him sexually.

There is no happy ending here, not in the way it would be for their counterparts. There is only one escape from the traps circumstance has set. The scene that brings about both their deaths is sheer poetry, intense and heartrending. But the story ends with this:

“Spock struggled mightily to leave the prison of his body and ascend, refined and filtered until, pure spirit, he was reunited with the liberated essence of his lover. The attraction was so great that he felt the bonds of flesh weaken, fiber by fiber, and break. The stiff fingers slipped from his grasp as liberated from its dark cell in the Forbidden City of his mind, his freed soul shook off the clinging webs of insanity and meshed, naked and joyful out into their first pure, celestial embrace.”