15. If Mirrors Could Speak

“Do you have an identity beyond the mirror?”

“I am you. I am your reflection.”

“That’s called avoiding the question, Mirror-Me. “You have read Alice: Through the Looking glass, haven’t you? I know the consequences of avoiding questions. Like she destroyed her mirror and thus the world beyond it, I fear you would do the same. And yet, I cannot lie to you. You were never good at lying to yourself, after all.”

Mirror-Me looks scared. I won’t ask any more distressing questions, I think to myself. I lean as close to the mirror as the dresser will allow, and press my cheek against Mirror-Me’s.

“If your world is anything like mine, you probably need some intelligent conversation once in a while, right? You can talk to me, if you like?” I tentatively whisper. She begins to smile. I realize that she has her own identity beyond my reflection. Like left to right, light and shadow, her world is just a little flipped. I now have a friend!

At least my reflection can never leave me.

We talk once or twice a day. There are no others whom I can dare to be open with in my reality. Over the years Mirror-Me has acquired several cosmetic and personality changes. Her hair is shorter. She looks older. She has more scars than ever before. I try, and fail, to ask about them. She is an expert in evading the topic. One day I look into the mirror, and I have no reflection. The room beyond is empty. Mirror-Me has gone.

She has left me too.

I crumple to the floor before the dresser, sobbing. Pain hits hardest in the soft places where certainty once nestled. The room begins to rumble around me. If it’s an earthquake, let it bury me. I do not wish to care. Then –the mirror explodes! Shards landing in my hair and on my clothes, slicing open a million little cuts all over my face. Mirror-Me leans out of it, shouting,

“…come here, Aevon! Please, hurry! Someone’s reflection tried to take revenge for the legend of Alice. Your world is destroying itself!”

She leans out and grabs me by the shoulders, pulling me upwards strongly from my crouch on glassshard-floor, and I go headfirst through the ruined mirror. She holds me tight to her, immeasurably scared for me. I begin to smile.

“What’s your name then?” I ask her, as black-suited people begin to seal up the ruins of the dresser.

“Call me Yasha, darling. You’re safe now. You will be very happy here.”

“Correction,” I grin, snuggling closer to my ex-reflection, “we will be very happy here. Together?”

And we kiss.

Yasha

II Year