Mirror, Mirror

© 1999 E. Michael Lewis
All rights reserved.

Thomas Bannon thought: I've just been barfed on by the seventies.

Goldenrod carpet. Woodgrain paneling. To his left, a barren living room with a mirror fastened to one wall. To his right, a hideous kitchen filled with green sinks and appliances.

"Well," said the realtor, "what do you think?"

Julie Bannon studied the one-foot rise that passed for a cathedral ceiling.

"Charming," she said. Tom was scared that she meant it.

"It's a 1970 Champion," the realtor rambled, "single wide, ten by sixty-six. Two bedrooms, one bath. Right this way."

The smaller bedroom was first. It doubled as the laundry room.

"Perfect for a new baby," the realtor cooed.

Next was the bath—more hideous green, except for the toilet, which was yellow. All were wrapped in the same matching tile as the kitchen. Only in the seventies, Tom thought. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall. It was only slightly smaller than the living room. Flowered wallpaper made the room nearly tolerable.

The realtor turned for his coupe de grace.

"The family is asking twenty-thousand for it, half-acre and all. They're anxious to sell so they can clear up the debts their mother left them. It's a nice little place for a young couple just starting out."

Julie found Tom's hand. They blushed as only newlyweds can.

"Can we look around for a bit?"

"Sure. Take your time."

Thomas led his wife down the hallway and into the living room. He leaned up against the buffet that separated the living room from the kitchen. Julie sauntered after him, smiling shyly. Tom rolled his eyes.

"You can't be serious," he said.

"I like it," she replied. "It feels—homey."

"Jules, honey," Tom took her by the shoulders, "It's nasty. Look at the curtains." He showed her the stained gauze thing that hung limply from the curtain rod.

Julie was undaunted.

"We'll buy new ones with the money we'll save." She hugged him tight. "Just think of it. Our own little lovenest. No more landlords, no more waking up at three a.m. to electric guitars, no more paying rent. And it's a lot less then we thought."

She had him there. He began to wonder if it would really look so bad with all of their stuff in it.

He pulled away. "Are you sure you like it?"

"Yes."

"Okay, let's put in a bid."

Julie returned to his arms, hugging him tighter. "I love you," she said.

Tom watched himself hug her back in the long mirror of the living room.

"Hi home, I'm honey!"

Julie was doing dishes at the sink. She blew him a kiss as he came in the door. "Hi handsome."

Tom Bannon set down his briefcase and rolled up his sleeves. "Can I help?"

"I'd love you to dry."

She gave him a real kiss as he picked up a towel. "How was your day?"

"Don't ask," Tom said. "No more banking until tomorrow at nine. Tell me about your day."

"Well, I've got everything where I want it for now. The trailer seems a lot smaller with all our stuff in it, don't you think?"

Tom looked into the living room to see that Julie was right. Even with new curtains, the room did not open up like they hoped. The TV stand, the couch, the easy chair, and the stereo cabinet were locked in a heated battle for supremacy. They were all losing to the house.

"And we need new windows," she continued. "These ones are really drafty. And just look at the mirror."

"What about it?"

"It's warped. Can't you see it?"

Tom looked deep into the glass across the room but could not see any distortion until he moved to put a plate in the dishrack. He watched his image stretch forcefully across its length.

"Yuck!" Tom exclaimed. "Cree-py!"

Julie handed him the last dish.

"Maybe we could move the TV in front of it," he said.

"Nope. I tried that when I set it up. The cable hook-up won't stretch that far." She dried her hands and handed the towel to Tom. "We could take it down, I guess."

"Thing's practically bolted to the wall," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah," she said, winding up the towel and snapping him with it. "Welcome to the funhouse!"

Tom raced after his wife as she pranced merrily down the hallway.

Tom Bannon looked at his dishpan hands and sighed. The joys of having a retail wife.

He dried his hands disgustedly on a dishtowel strewn with teddy bears. He looked up swiftly, seeing something out of the corner of his eye.

He saw himself standing there, across the room. The mirror and the sink faced each other, so Tom was looking up for perhaps the hundredth time that evening. He wadded up the towel feeling more disgusted, until he realized that all the hair on the back of his neck was standing up.

That night, he had realized that the mirror unsettled him. He walked from behind the buffet to go down the hall and when his eyes moved past the mirror, his peripheral vision caught something that made him stop.

He spun about the room a little too fast and ended up dizzily facing the kitchen. His mind tried to figure out just what he had seen. He tried in vain to process the indirect image. Something . . . someone . . . running?

Again he turned to the mirror. It transfixed him as it had all night, an unblinking eye drilled into the wood paneling, flanked by electric sconces. He looked a bit worried.

As Tom studied himself, he thought about what he had seen (Thought he had seen, he corrected himself). The more he thought of it, the more he pictured a little old lady, the kind that deposited penny rolls and social security checks every day at his bank: short, bent, wearing ancient, shapeless clothes. Only she had moved faster than a track star, faster than a lightning bolt. He smiled at the absurdity of his imagination. He began to chuckle when he thought of Julie's reaction to his thoughts.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall," he intoned as he looked at himself, "what the fuck are you lookin' at?" His chuckle turned then to outright laughter.

The laugh died in his throat when he saw the blood.

In the mirror he saw that his left hand was awash with it, ready to drip on the carpet. It didn't hurt until he pulled his eyes from the mirror and put them on the wound itself. A cry escaped his throat as he raced to the sink and dowsed it in cold water. Tom held his forearm as the water washed away the excess blood, revealing a thin, razor-like wound across his palm. Though painful, it was thankfully shallow.

Tom looked up just in time to watch the color drain from his face.

That night in bed, Julie told Tom, "Damn, that is weird."

"There was no broken glass or anything," Tom went on. "I looked up, and there I was, bleeding profusely. It's as if the mirror . . ."

"Darling, calm down. You must have cut yourself on a steak knife or something and washed it clean before you realized it."

Tom frowned. He thought about turning away from her, but stayed still for the moment. "It's just damn strange, that's all."

Julie stroked the hair from his forehead and kissed it. "I know," she said. "But I bet you that's what happened."

Tom was still frowning, but began to relax as she played with his hair.

"Tom?"

"Yes?"

"Do you like our new house?"

"Yes. Why wouldn't I?"

"Don't get defensive. I just wondered is all."

Tom struggled to get comfortable. "I don't know, it's just . . ."

"What?"

"I guess I just don't like that mirror anymore. Why don't we take it down and put up a nice Renoir print or something?"

"We could. Thing is, we'd probably have to take the wall out with it." Julie began to act coy. "I know what your problem is, mister man."

"What?"

"You're just trying to get me out of working nights, aren't you?"

"Could you blame me?"

Julie kissed him on the mouth. "Not at all," she breathed into his ear.

Tom smiled his best newlywed smile all through the night and well into the morning.

A month of dishpan hands had Tom wishing they had bought a dishwasher instead of new curtains. He was also ready for Julie never to work another night again, even if they had to live solely on Ritz and Cheezwiz. Tom smirked at that thought, then looked up to the mirror. He watched the smirk die on his lips.

Time had also changed his attitude about the mirror—he hated it. Hate was not the way Tom would have put it, but he found himself not wanting to be home alone when his wife worked late. Being alone with it was something that Tom dreaded more than anything.

Even Julie, sensible, rational Julie had taken a dislike to the thing. She, too, had seen movement in her peripheral vision: the gray shape they now called 'the old lady.' Tom had examined its frame and the way it was attached to the wall dozens of times—the house was just too small to undergo that big of a renovation.

Tom felt like he was under scrutiny when he was home alone. He knew Julie did too, and that she was secretly glad to have to work so many nights, and glad to go out on her nights off with her mother or her friends, because the mirror rattled her so. Tom had been rattled too, but not so much out of fear as out of anger, out of violation. He resented the mirror as a foreign presence in his house, where he had a right to feel safe.

He stretched. It had been a long day. He went to the stereo, intent on putting on something to relax him. He was about to hit 'play' when he caught a glimpse of something in the mirror.

It's me, his rational mind told him. Instead of turning to confront his own image, he began to concentrate intently on the shape at the edge of his eyes. He slowly began taking sideways steps towards the mirror. It was gray, like the old lady, but stationary, and inside the mirror. It was about two feet high, and appeared to sit on the buffet. Dark circles hovered about its crown. He turned his head the other way. The buffet was empty.

Turning back, it was still in the mirror, right at the edge of his vision, waiting for him. He was closing on the mirror now, watching as the object grew more distinct. He could make out curves and handles. The top was a jumble of black. Slowly, he tried to face the mirror.

When the image retreated, he stopped, turned back, and watched the object return to its place on the empty buffet. He was positive that it was a jar or a container of some sort.

His mind, wandering for a moment, spouted out song lyrics from his youth: "Do you hold your breath when you look in the mirror, stealing years, it takes not a giver, have you taken refuge, from its charms?"

Tom brushed the words to the back of his mind before he could debate whether there was refuge from its charms. He concentrated harder, taking even slower steps toward the image. At the same time, he slowly pivoted himself toward the mirror, watching the image grow more distinct in his vision. Tom was suddenly conscious of the mirror being a gigantic eye, and that the eye was blinking, closing on him, and when he saw that the object for the first time directly, he realized that he was somewhere else entirely.

Outside, the sky was red. He could tell because of the holes in the roof and the drapeless windows. All of their furniture was gone. An area rug that had been chewed at the edges covered most of the blackened carpet. Weeds grew up through holes in the floor. Tom starred at the gray vase of dead carnations that adorned the buffet.

"Jesus," he muttered, "where the hell am I?"

A thin, reedy voice replied, "You're in the looking-glass trailer."

Tom's eyes widened as an old woman in a slack gray dress walked out from behind the buffet. She looked exactly as the gray lady did in his imagination.

Tom's rational mind tried to comprehend everything that had happened.

"Who? What?"

"That's what Lewis Carroll would have called it," The old lady said as she shuffled closer. "Just because he was a clergyman didn't make him blind to the truth."

"What the hell are you taking about?" Tom followed her gaze behind him and he spun around to see. This trailer's mirror held the perfect image of his living room. Reality looked in at him benignly.

"How did I get in here?"

"You did it," the old lady replied. "You've learned to see. Only folks that learn to see what isn't there ever get behind a mirror."

"Who the hell are you?" Tom shouted out of panic. "I made you up!"

The old lady seemed wistful for a moment. "Funny," she said, "That's what I thought about you when you first came."

Tom followed her as she beckoned him into the kitchen. All the doors had been ripped off the cabinets, and what tile there was left was smeared with something green and crusty. She sat down at the one chair at a small kitchen table.

"I used to live where you live," she said. "I used to think as you do. Now I'm here. I'll be here forever."

"Where is—here?"

"It's where we are, and where we were. On the outside, looking in. Only here, everybody stays the same. Life is static. No death." She began pouring insects from a soiled pitcher into a bone china teacup. Tom turned away as she tried to take a drink.

"My children were all too happy to be rid of me," she continued. "They had learned to despise me as I had them. I knew none of them would ever learn to see as you and I have."

"See what? This?"

"That mirror," she gestured to the living room, "is a weak link. All mirrors are gateways to this side, but some are weaker than others. The weak ones make it easy to travel. That mirror is special, like the Culiver Crystal or the DeIver glass. You've heard of those?"

Tom had not. He shook his head, trying to clear the image of this woman, of anyone, scrying into his bathroom mirror every morning, or into the circular vanity mirror that Julie kept in their bedroom.

"Look lady, your kids sold your trailer and the mirror to me, and I want you to leave us alone."

Just then, Tom caught movement from the mirror. Looking up, he saw the front door open and Julie stepping in, Julie, home from her night of closing her store.

"My God!" Tom cried as the unreality of his situation washed over him. He walked to the mirror and put his fingers on its cold, unyielding surface, watching her take off her coat. He watched her call his name in silence. His breath began to fog it up. He used his shirtsleeve to wipe away the smudges.

"Julie!" he yelled, "Julie! I'm right here!"

Julie walked to the sink, still half filled with dishes. He watched her quizzically pick up his wedding ring from where he had taken it off next to the sink. He always took it off to do the dishes. She turned it over and over in her hand.

"Julie! It's me! Look at the mirror!"

Julie noticeably shivered. Her lips soundlessly called his name again. She put the ring in her pocket and walked towards the hall.

"Julie!" Tom raced down the hall of the looking-glass trailer and watched her remove her earrings from behind the bathroom mirror. She threw them into the sink and stormed out. From the vanity in the master bedroom, he watched her collapse on the bed and begin to cry.

Oh no, Tom thought. She thinks we're fighting. She thinks I've left her or something.

He raced back out to the kitchen to find the old woman. She was looking into a woman's compact. He stopped short.

"How do I get out of here?" he demanded. "How do I get back to the real world?"

She hissed at him.

"This is the real world, you fool. Mirrors never lie."

"Look," Tom said. "You've got it backwards. I'm not staying here. Tell me how I can get back there." He pointed to the mirror.

"Why would you want to go back there?" she said, not looking at him. She smiled into the compact with sickening joy.

Tom gripped her by the front of her gown and pulled her to her feet. She never met his gaze. Tom angrily shoved her away, picked up her dining room chair and walked up to the mirror.

So much for seven years bad luck, he thought. He raised the chair to the mirror and let it fly. It only bounced off, just the way he had seen things bounce off impact-resistant glass in movies. Tom tried three more times, his mind absurdly singing a line from Tommy: "Do you see and hear or do I smash the mirror?"

Nothing. He aborted his forth try when Julie returned to the living room. She appeared stiff but in control. He called to her again and she did not respond. She had put on her coat and was opening the door.

She's going to go look for me, he thought. She thinks I've left her and she's going to try to find me!

"No! Wait!"

Julie closed the front door.

Tom raced past the laughing old woman and tore open the door to the outside.

The sky was an empty brick red. The trees were amalgams of common and uncommon, dead and alive. His '94 Neon was up on blocks, its hood open, its engine missing. Her '87 Camaro sat behind, with no trunk or interior to speak of. Racing to it, he caught a glance of the driver's door closing in the outside rear-view mirror on the driver's side door. Julie sat inside, trying not to cry.

Tom looked at the mirror and remembered what the old woman had said about how all mirrors could do what the living room one could. Concentrating on his wife, the gray gravel, the mud on the door, on all the things he could see in the real world, he gazed deep into the mirror with his best penetrating gaze, focusing as he had before. He was half-conscious of his hand thrusting into the little mirror and not meeting any resistance.

A vast warping sensation twisted through his body as he felt himself configuring, contorting, collapsing into the mirror. Tom's consciousness thankfully slipped from him as he felt the hard, sharp gravel beneath him.

Julie put the Camaro in reverse.

The realtor fumbled with the key.

"Ah, here we go."

Alan and Debbie Parsons followed the agent into the dark, empty trailer. The agent fussed the curtains open and walked to the thermostat. With the light, the couple perceived the same explosion of the seventies that Tom Bannon had.

" . . . in a big hurry to sell it," the realtor rambled. "They bought the place from me about eight months ago, but since the accident, she just wants to put everything behind her."

Alan was quick to speak up.

"What sort of accident?"

The realtor paused.

"A real tragedy," he began. "I'm sure you read about it. It was all over the news. Wife accidentally ran over the husband. Killed him instantly."

Alan nodded as Debbie walked to the center of the living room, her eyes falling flatly on the mirror. She watched her image slowly begin to warp.

"Now," the realtor tried to sound cheerful, "let me show you the rest of the place."

"That won't be necessary," Debbie spoke up. Both the realtor and her husband looked at her in surprise. She was as white as a sheet.

She looked back at them steadily, but her voice wavered. "I've seen enough. This place is not for us. Come along, Alan." Debbie marched past her husband and went right out the door.

Alan shrugged. "Uh, sorry to bring you all the way out here . . . "

"No bother," the realtor said tightly. He turned down the heat and began to close the curtains. Alan joined his wife outside as the agent locked the door, ignoring the shape that caught his peripheral vision as he went out, a gray shape that hung in the mirror: a vase, overflowing with dead carnations.

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