WELP, MIRRORS!

Written by Anonymous

You overslept. Wakey wakey. Out your bed you go. Your hair is a mess. Snap. Mild headache. You hobble over to the mirror, to see yourself. What do you see?

You walk around. Everything and everyone around you is a mirror, not because they really are, but because you just can’t have it any other way- you want to see nothing but yourself in everything and everyone. Yuck! Until you’re sick of yourself. Welp! Now your reflection is not the real you, after all. Come on, save the bull for the seedlings. You don’t even know who the real you is, but somehow, you expected the mirrors to have all the answers.

Deranged, frantic, you rumble around, covering every mirror you see, or smashing them. The world around you grows dark and cold, because, now, you got rid of all the mirrors. It’s all too eerie, you don’t want to be seen as that weird one that’s afraid of ittie bittie mirrors. So you wait until everyone is dead asleep, nighttime, then you can wage your total war. The revolution won’t be reflected. Your first casualty, the mirror in your bathroom cabinet. God knows whatever the hell you’re holding in your hands, you grab anything you could use to smash it. You carry a dark heavy cloth across your shoulder. You keep the lights off, you don’t want your mirror to see you. Sneaky. Stealthy. You put that science fair trophy on the ground. Calm. Silent. Over the mirror the cloth goes and you quickly wrap it all around. Tighten it up. Are you trying to suffocate it? This is a goddamn mirror for Gonzalez’ sake, not Caylee Anthony. What gives, you’re too deranged anyway at this point, too far gone. Okay. Now you want to hit it on its skull, knock it over, smash it. You pick up the trophy, lift it up and over with your arm, get that torque right, your left hand still gripping the cloth over the tied-up mirror.

Welp! An arm smashes out from the other side of the mirror and bam! sucker punches you. You wince. Trophy dropped. Your arms scrambling. Mirror shards all over the glossy bathroom floor. Gush. Stunned. Your reflexes too slow. Another hit, bam! Now your nose is crushed, total blood geyser. And you’ve fallen over, sprawled on the bathroom floor, glass shards snipped into you. As you fall, you hit the back of your head on the tub. Bam, right under the Andromeda, you have this towering dark thing that’s just crawled out of the mirror, its outlined figure dominating over you.

Welp! How’s your little war shaping up now? It feels like a bad trip, and you want so much for it to be nothing but a nightmare, or some nasty hallucination. Nope, you’re deranged, and this is as real as real gets. You’re still spread all over the floor, you try to scuttle, but bam! Before you could make any move, that thing knocks you shitless with your own trophy. So much for winning. You’re bleeding, your skull, throbbing and your vision, dimming. In your last gasps for sight, that thing reaches out for the light switch. Flick. Surprise! You see it. It’s you. No no no no, it’s your reflection. But nooo, you couldn’t be more wrong, it’s very much you. You you you. Who knows though. And for all they know, they can’t tell and won’t even bother, it’s all the same to them. Okay, now you’re probably unconscious. Fading. Everything is fading into darkness.

You overslept. Wakey wakey. Out your bed you go. Your hair is a mess. Snap. Mild headache. You reach over your forehead, down to your nose. Weird, right, everything somehow is fine. You then reach over to your hip, you could’ve sworn a glass shard was plunged deep just the previous ni… You don’t want to go there. Instantly repress that memory, or bad trip or whatever it was. Nothing. Ever. Happened… You convince yourself. And right by you, you notice it, this large rectangular slab hovering. It has a clear window, you can see through it, right. But on the other side, is an exact replica of everything in your room. And right there, is that thing. Welp, it has also woken up. It slugs over towards you, to the floating glass frame, and you towards it, in tandem. It looks exactly like you, and it is looking right at you. It’s you. You you you. You’re looking back at it. Locked, you both look into each other. What do you see? Welp, mirrors! 

Artwork by Monica Rohan