For those whom have read my book, this might seem a little familiar at first. You’ll find quickly that while I touched on similar themes in one direction, I developed other themes entirely. If you’ve read my book you’ll be relieved to find here not a drop of blood, and all bodily facets completely intact. Enjoy!
Mirror Mirror
When I awoke I found myself encircled by mirrors. And then spoke a voice with no mouth; an utterance without vibration to my ear; a certainty penetrating deeply into my brain, “Choose correctly that which you are or forever be lost.” Looking again at myself surrounded by myself times twelve, it was then I noticed the knobs low, mid-right, in each reflection.
Turning to myself I saw myself different. My face to the face in a fun-house mirror; bloated, contorted, my stock thin and frail. A door I’d choose clearly and easily not to open. And beside it the same in reverse; a face better for a tooth-pick, a body that could not be moved upon legs liable to snap under less wait than “my” torso seemed to contain. Tallness and shortness being options at the other end of light refracting versions of me lacking myself, I resolved I’d not find myself well if the truest me could be found too-easily as mere carnival amusement. Other reflections were not as easy to dismiss.
One mirror, one wall, was I as I was. It annoyed me to look at myself as I’d never again wish myself to be; certainly no one I’d wish upon myself at present, brief terror quickly retreating to consider that my truest self had not overcome an existence I’d worked hard not to know now. And facing this mirror opposite, myself newly born. Almost, almost a desire to return to relearn all of existence as though I’d never seen it before. Knowing that to begin again means to arrive where I am; I could not exist genuinely as I know myself to other parents at another point in time. And so being reborn, even if it would make me as I am would create me ultimately again to this room, a me that is not me if I wish to exist forward and not, again, merely as I was.
Two more mirrors telling stories similar as I have never been; a future me that I could not recognize for I had not existed as I saw myself, myself cradled by the arms of death as my tombstone was being ready to be carved. To not choose death was even easier than not choosing a life I have never lived. Even to see myself as I would want to be, I could not exist as now, I could not identify myself to the mirror, I could not tell myself how I became who I was, let alone another. To become myself future would be not to exist if all that made me was merely a choice, and not living that choice through to the point of time of my own existence. To choose myself future was to choose non-existence. To choose death was to choose the same.
Eight doors that I’d not be leaving through, four to choose that I might be. Of these four, two as glaringly obvious as the others. In one I saw many of myself in all forms taken in the other eleven mirrors, and several forms in addition. Like looking into a spectrum of myself as any and all possible existence. It made my stomach queasy, and was the most obvious of all that potential aside, I could only exist as I was as one at a time, or if I chose all my possibilities simultaneously, I’d fear an attempt to live as such for the charge of hubris the Gods must level against me that I presume existence as a being all at once simultaneously. And facing every possibility, I saw a mirror from which stared at me nothing at all. And so I moved on to the last two, a challenge posed to my mind.
In one I saw myself, and in the other too. In one was I clothed.
Having seen myself in ten, not myself, the contrast to seeing myself as I was was stark. As I looked to my own hand and followed my wrist to the sleeve hiding the rest of my arm, I saw that the mirror revealed me clearly and perfectly as far as any eye could tell. But then as I began to roll my sleeve back, I saw no change in the mirror that showed me beyond what the cloth covering me might show others. I contemplated removing my clothes, considered that then one mirror would reflect the other perfectly; one would begrudgingly concede what the other already held to be the truth. I considered whether any of the mirrors knew that it distorted light and being; I contemplated that any of the vessels of image knew itself in terms of light, knowledge, reflection of genuine existence versus the image it held for the sole pair of eyes reviewing them to distinguish to the best of their ability.
And contemplating thus my gaze passed once more on all versions of myself I couldn’t be, refused to be, or flatly rejected by my choice. Glancing around, I came again to the mirror that showed nothing, though it faced the reflection of all possibilities simultaneous. And reviewing it I saw what I’d not noticed before, assuming it be it’s opposite’s equal at a glance. Staring back at me, with lid but no brow, was a solid eye in suspension hovering before an otherwise infinite self-reflection of mirrordom. I stared into an eye, and as I did, it began to fade. As I blinked it returned as though never faded, but when I stared at it without ceasing contact for an instant, its image grew faint until all but gone. It was there to be seen, but as something whose sole existence was only to see; it faded away to let what could be seen be shown.
My clothing was not me, the mirror of nakedness showed something more pure than what I chose to show others, or used to keep myself separate from one force in life or another. But was my body who I was? A clearer version of myself than 10 others, but while my existence was defined by my physical needs, was I? And the other mirror, it did not show non-existence as I’d thought originally, but something else entirely. Would I fade away to choose myself as nothing? Is that the choice I’d be making? And what was the difference between that and death?
“So let me get this straight. You’re going to choose yourself as a vampire?”
“Pardon?”
“As a vampire. You know, they have no reflection.”
“I’d actually never thought of it that way before, Billy. I was just about done with my story though, if you don’t mind . . .”
“O.K. but Mom gets to tell the next story! S’mores just go better with scary stories about axe-wielding maniacs–”
“Eww, I hate stories like that Billy! They give me bad dreams. Dad’s story might be BOR-ing, but at least I don’t have to worry about nightmares.”
“But Sally, he didn’t tell you about the psycho clown that comes out from behind the fun-house mirrors with bloody pick-axes and is about to kill him when–”
“MOM!”
“KIDS! Kids, settle down. This was a true story that actually happened to me and–”
“Yeah? Then who put you in the room?”
“Well, Billy, maybe there is a bit of hyperbole thrown in there, but, anyway, if you’d just let me finish. Here, have another S’more”
“Phwank you.” Billy acquiesced through sticky graham-cracker encrusted lips.
Anyway, as I was saying . . . My body defined me to a point, but if it was all that I was I’d have frittered away my time pursuing only . . . S’mores . . . and never would I have attempted to be something more than an animal. What made me me was those moments attempting to put aside my body that I might be able to become something more than exclusively trying to fuel and enjoy myself. And the frame-work in which I strove to become more than myself was the rest of existence; the apparently infinite existence compared to my small ability to perceive the concrete reality surrounding me.
It was not my body for which exclusively I labored. It was not merely to interest my mind. The heart in my blood pumped at times for others perhaps more than myself. And no view of myself could encompass those whom I loved as I did myself, be “they” person or thing. It was life itself with which I could be identified if my body was not present. Watching my own life, it’s interactions with all of life of which I was a part, determined by my physicality in part, but superseded by my desire to watch life around me thrive by the actions of my hand that were not otherwise invested directly with feeding the needs of my body, that was what I truly was.
Actually an anti-vampire, if you will, so did I turn toward the mirror, the door, in which, apparently, my, one floating eye stared back at me. And as I stepped closer the eye slowly dissolved into the infinity seen in the face of mirrors reflecting their own infinite nature; the infinite nature of light itself.
The knob was turned, and so through did I pass, grateful, so very direly grateful, for my own existence.
“And the story for the night being told, it’s time for bed. Throw some water on your faces, brush your teeth, and head for your tent.”
“MOM!” They cried in unison, Billy taking the lead, “Can’t we have a real story before we go to bed?”
Of course Sally was more interested in the S’mores and the warmth of the fire. She cherished these times of sweetness and warmth, even if the price to be paid was the occasional ease of her slumber.
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