Reception By John Briggs As she passed by on her way back to the wedding reception, she glanced in the mirror and realized she had no head. Where her head should have been stood a blank above an uneven outline as if the skin had been cauterized or recently healed. The lack of head obviously hadn't affected her thinking. Back now, mixing in the crowded room where her new husband danced with an old girlfriend, no one seemed to notice. Everyone spoke to her normally, giving their congratulations. Evidently her profound absence could be appreciated only when she was alone. Otherwise, by unspoken mutual agreement, her head existed: a cleverly constructed consensual head; an apparently tangible outgrowth of the void. She didn't stop to wonder whether the others in the room had no heads either in their solitude, or if their solitude, so to speak, even existed. Instead she found herself worrying deeply over whether her husband opening the door and seeing her alone one day, would feel shocked at the sight of her barren neck.