House of Mirrors
Do you ever wonder what the people on the other side of the mirror are doing when you’re not looking at them?
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Have you ever walked past a mirror, and out of the corner of your eye, seen something that wasn’t supposed to be there?
You turn to look, but there’s nothing out of place. It’s a perfect replica of the world you live in, only with everything reversed. The writing is backwards. The part in your hair is on the wrong side.
You raise your right hand.
He raises his left.
We’re told it’s just a reflection. Light bounces off the mirror into your eyes, creating a perfect inverted likeness of yourself and your surroundings.
Have you ever wondered if that is the real world, and you’re the reflection?
According to some theoretical physicists, reality is created by the observer. We live in a participatory universe. Consciousness plays a role in the very existence of what we call reality.
It’s like one of those computer games, where the player explores a world, the details of which are procedurally generated as you play. It doesn’t exist until it needs to.
What if that’s how the universe works?
As we develop the technology and tools to peer further into space — into the past — are we, by our observations, calling those details into existence?
And what if, when we look into a mirror, at another version of ourselves, we are bringing that reflection to life?
I mention this because sometimes when I look in the mirror, he’s not there. Just for a split second. As if he was off doing something else, living his own life in that backwards world. He forgot it was his job to be there to show me the spot I had missed shaving, or just how heavy the bags under my eyes were after another sleepless night.
It’s crazy, I know.
I mean, it’s much more likely that the same insomnia causing my face to age prematurely is affecting my mind, causing me to think I see — or don’t see — things in the mirror.
It all started when Francesca died.
What a senseless freak accident. She was walking home past the construction site on Third, when a steel beam fell from the top floor and struck her like an arrow dropping from the sky.
It was falling so fast that if she had just been walking a fraction slower, it would have missed her completely.
There is a building across the street from where it happened, one of those steel and glass monstrosities that are so popular these days. Its exterior is a gleaming mirror, faithfully replicating the street and the construction site opposite.
Reflecting the death of my fiancée.
Except for one thing. There is a bluish-green tint to the mirrored glass that gives the reflection it offers a ghostly hue.
I bring this up because of prisms.
You know, those triangular segments of glass that cause white light to be broken up into a rainbow. I remember from grade school that it does so because the different wavelengths of light travel at different speeds as they pass through glass. Red, because it has a lower frequency than blue or violet light, travels faster.
Which made me to wonder.
What if the Francesca in the reflection — in the blue-green copy of this world — was walking that fraction slower, and the I-beam never hit her?
What if she survived?
“You know that’s just wishful thinking,” Dr. Williams said. He put aside his pad and peered at me over the top of his half-moon reading glasses. “Francesca is gone.”
He had been quiet — except for the scratching of his pen on the pad he held in his lap — while I tried to explain to him why I couldn’t let it go. Letting me ramble on about my crazy theories and fatigue induced hallucinations. I suspected he wanted to let me say it all out loud so I could hear just how insane it sounded.
“I know. I was at the funeral. I saw them put her into the ground.”
“It’s completely natural to want to believe it didn’t happen,” he told me. “That she somehow survived. But we both know that isn’t true.”
“Do we?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered definitively. “And although grieving is a process, we can’t allow it to take over our lives. You need to move one. You have your whole life ahead of you. Do the things that you would have done with her. It’s what Francesca would have — ”
“ — Would have wanted me to do? Is that what you were going to say?”
He sheepishly acknowledged my assumption with a nod.
“Why do people say that? To be frank, it’s not as comforting as it sounds.”
Dr. Williams nodded. “You’re right. It’s just one of those things we all want to believe, so we have a reason to get up in the morning. But that doesn’t make it any less valid.”
I sat up and shook my head. “What if she’s some place else, trapped, waiting for me? What if what she really wants is for me to join her?”
Dr. Williams put his pen and pad aside and leaned forward. “Robert, suicide is not the answer.”
“What? Suicide? You think I want to kill myself?”
“What did you mean by joining Francesca?”
“In the mirror world,” I explained. “Haven’t you been listening to me? I’m sure it’s in the notes you’ve been scrawling.”
The psychiatrist seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he sat back in his chair. “Yes, of course. My apologies for leaping to that conclusion. Tell me, how do you imagine you could join her — if such a thing were possible?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Maybe you’re right. It’s just wishful thinking.”
“Well,” he said, glancing at his watch, “I suggest we transfer that wishing into more concrete actions you can take to help get through this period. Losing someone you love is never easy, especially when they had so much of their life ahead of them. But you still have all of those years. And maybe you’ll find yourself making room in your life for someone else.”
I wanted to laugh at Dr. Williams. He was just like all the other supposedly well-meaning friends and coworkers and family members who thought telling me it was possible I’d find another woman to fill Francesca’s shoes was a comfort. In truth, it was a dagger in my heart. I could never betray the love we had between us after her death any more than I could have when she was alive.
But it was pointless to explain it to people who obviously never felt that deep of a love, the connection one feels with a soulmate.
There would never be anyone else in my life but Francesca.
Never.
I spent a lot of time on that street where Francesca was killed. Peering into the blue-green reflection on the side of the mirrored building, searching for any sign of her. Hoping I would see her walking home as she usually did alongside the construction site.
But the hours I spent searching were fruitless, and eventually I would give up and go home to the apartment we shared. The bathroom had a double vanity, with two mirrors set above the twin sinks. Francesca always used the one on the left. Her makeup, and lotions, and hairbrushes were still there. As if waiting for her return.
Sometimes I would stand in front of her mirror. Willing myself to see her reflection instead of my own. That smile that always graced her lips when she saw me, no matter what kind of mood she was in.
But only my own tired and mournful countenance stared back at me.
The carnival appeared one Saturday morning at the start of summer. It sprung up overnight in a vacant lot two blocks from where I lived. They had overpriced rides and food and those rigged games, where people would spend fifty dollars to try to win some two-dollar trinket, the giant stuffed animals always just out of reach.
I hadn’t meant to go there. I hated carnivals, but Francesca loved them. She said the cacophony of recorded organ music each ride spewed out with excessive decibels created a symphony of pure joy to her ears.
To me, it was just noise.
But I took Dr. William’s advice and went anyway, indulging in all the carnival treats Francesca enjoyed. Cotton candy, funnel cakes and popcorn.
I didn’t go on most of the rides. They looked rather dangerous to me, and they usually made me nauseous — except for the Ferris Wheel. That one my stomach could endure.
Whenever Francesca and I would ride on in the past, I would wrap my arm around her, holding her close while she snuggled against me. And as the wheel turned, we watched the world rise and fall below us.
As I sat in the swinging gondola — alone this time — waiting for the operator to exchange passengers, I could see a part of the carnival that was blocked off to the public. Densely packed trailers and motorhomes filled the area, along with an attraction that the public couldn’t access from the midway.
“House of Mirrors,” its unlit sign proclaimed.
I wondered why it wasn’t sucking dollars out of people’s pockets like the rest of the rides and booths.
When I got off, I made my way to that back corner. A large, well-muscled man with a handle-bar mustache and bald head, as if he had walked right off the poster for the strongman act, guarded the area where I assumed all the carnies lived.
I smiled as I approached.
“No one’s allowed back here,” he warned when I was about fifteen feet away.
I stopped, then glanced over at the back of the expandable trailer that was the House of Mirrors. “What’s up with that?” I asked, waving in its direction. “Why isn’t it open?”
“It’s broken,” he replied.
“Isn’t it just a maze of mirrors?” I asked. “Did all the glass break?”
He ignored my question.
“Hey, George, Jocko needs you,” a voice said over a radio fastened to his belt.
“I’ll be right there,” the strongman replied. Then he turned to me. “Go on, get going,” he said. “There’s nothing for you back here.”
I stayed where I was while he walked off briskly toward the lights and noise of the carnival, staring at the shuttered attraction.
“Would you like me to read your fortune?” a voice asked, startling me.
I looked behind me where a short woman wearing the trappings of a gypsy fortune teller stood.
She couldn’t have been more than four and a half feet tall and looked to be at least a hundred years old. The wrinkled and sagging skin of her face made her look like one of those shrunken apple-head dolls. “Show me your hand.”
Without thinking, I extended the palm of my right hand toward her.
She took it into her own gnarled fingers, tracing the lines with her black nails. “Oh, so sad. You had the love of your life and lost her.”
How in the world could she tell that by looking at the creases in my skin?
“And you seek…” She didn’t finish what she was saying. Instead, she folded my hand into a fist and pushed it away from herself and gazed up at me with her gray eyes. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” she asked.
I knew exactly what she meant. I wanted to be with Francesca again. “Yes,” I replied.
She studied my face for a moment, then nodded and walked past me toward the maze of trailers the strongman had warned me to stay out of.
I followed her.
We walked through the narrow spaces between the mobile homes until we came upon the entrance to the House of Mirrors. She trundled up the steps to the door marked “Enter If You Dare” and opened it.
It was dark inside. Pitch black.
“Go on,” she urged.
I climbed the steps. They shifted slightly under my weight, but the old woman didn’t seem concerned.
“Inside,” she said, smiling a toothless grin.
I entered.
Once I passed the threshold, lights came on, blindingly bright. As I shielded my eyes, I heard the door slam shut behind me. I turned, reaching for the knob, but there wasn’t one. Just a mirror.
The only way out, apparently, was through.
A recording of what sounded like a demented music box spun up and added another dimension of weirdness to the looking glass labyrinth.
There were dozens of me scattered throughout the maze. Some panels, it seemed, were mirrors, while others — I discovered the hard way — were transparent glass. I had to navigate the passage by holding my hands out in front of me, to determine if the way was clear.
Then, as I was standing still, trying to determine the next path to try, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
Movement.
Was there someone else in here with me?
“Hello? Is there somebody there?” I called out over the music.
“Robert…” a faint voice answered.
A voice I knew.
“Francesca?”
I spun around, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was playing this sick joke on me.
The voice called out to me again. “Robert. Find me…” she said.
“Where? Where are you?”
I spun around again, and for the briefest of seconds, I saw her. Francesca. Standing at the end of a mirrored corridor, cast in a blue-green haze. “Francesca!” I shouted.
But she was gone.
I ran down to where I thought I had seen her, but there was no one there. I frantically began working my way through the maze, randomly going left or right, trying to find a pattern in the madness.
And then, I saw it. A door knob, sticking out of the mirror in front of me. I reached for brass knob as my reflection did the same and we simultaneously turned it.
I stepped out into the cool, crisp night air.
The door slammed shut behind me.
I lurched down the steps of the exit, finding myself between the side of the House of Mirrors and a fence. I saw a gate ahead and ran toward it, nearly falling onto the gravel overgrown with weeds.
At last I was back on the street. The sounds of the city returned, and I looked around to see exactly where I was. Fourth Street? It looked like it, but in the dark, I was confused.
I walked down toward Washington Avenue, but came upon Adams instead. What the hell? How could I be so lost in my own neighborhood?
I looked back down the way I had come and could see the glowing neon of the Chunky Burger fast food joint. But that should be east of where I was, not west.
Must have been the mirrors. They got my senses all mucked up. My apartment building was across the corner from the Chunky Burger, so, fighting my instincts, I walked back in that direction. The landmarks were familiar, but somehow wrong.
The chain of sleepless nights caught up to me all at once. I could barely keep my eyes open as I stumbled through the night. I focused on the sidewalk in front of me, not wanting to trip over a curb or step into a pothole.
When I arrived at my apartment building, I reached out for the door handle, only it wasn’t there. Someone exited the building, nearly knocking me over as the door swung unexpectedly toward me. The hinge was on the wrong side. Or was it me, disoriented by fatigue and my misadventure in the House of Mirrors?
I grabbed the door before it closed and entered the building. Fighting a yawn, I headed straight for a waiting elevator, entered and leaned wearily against the back wall of the car.
“Hey, Robert,” my neighbor, Sam, said in an overly cheerful voice. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks,” I muttered in reply.
We lived on the same floor, so I let him press the elevator button. I heard a ding, and the doors closed.
“You know what you should take so you don’t get a hangover. Olive oil. Just a tablespoon. Right down the old gullet.”
“I’m not drunk, Sam. Just tired.”
“Sure, buddy. I got tired last weekend. That was a wild time.”
When we reached our floor, I stepped out and ambled off to the right toward my apartment.
“Hey, where are you going?” Sam asked. “Your place is this way. Next to mine. Come on.” He walked over and looped my arm around his shoulder. “I’ll get you the rest of the way home.”
I let him guide me toward a door. I could barely keep my eyes open, but managed to stay on my feet as Sam took the key to my apartment out of my hand, unlocked my door, and guided me all the way to my bed.
“Olive oil,” he reminded me as he left.
I fell into a deep sleep.
In the morning, I didn’t feel that much better. I headed for the bathroom, but somehow ended up in the kitchen. And once I found the bathroom, all of Francesca’s beauty supplies were lined up on my side of the vanity.
Had Sam done it? To mess with me?
I looked up at the mirror.
Written in lipstick on the glass, backwards, were the words:
Suddenly, I was wide awake.
It was the same message I had gotten from the ghostly voice in the House of Mirrors. How would Sam know about that?
But aside from them being backwards, there was something else strange about the letters.
I grabbed one of Francesca’s lipsticks, uncovered it, and drew a line under the words. There were actually two lines. One on the surface, and its reflection because of the thickness of the mirror’s glass.
But the message had no reflection.
And then I realized, neither did I.
I stumbled back, nearly falling into the tub. The faucet was on the wrong side. I looked around. The toilet was in the wrong place. Everything was backwards. I caught site of a toothpaste tube on the vanity. The writing was reversed. The words on everything were front to back.
I went out into the hallway. It hadn’t been momentary confusion. Everything was the opposite of what it should have been.
I ran out of my apartment, momentarily confused when the doorknob was not where I was expecting it to be. I took the elevator to the lobby, noting that the labels on the buttons were all backwards and on the wrong side of the car.
When I got to the ground floor, I raced outside and stopped to look at the large neon sign across the street. Written in giant backwards letters was:
I was in the mirror world. Somehow, I had entered the realm of my reflection.
Did that mean…?
I raced down the street, then stopped and turned around, running in the opposite direction, toward where the construction site where Francesca died was in this world.
When I reached that street, everything was shades of blue-green. A monochromatic streetscape that matched what I saw all those hours gazing into the side of the mirrored building across from where she had died. And when I looked at it now — on the wrong side of the street — I saw a full color version of what was just a single-hue behind me.
I turned around and looked toward the spot where the iron beam had killed Francesca.
And there she was.
Smiling.
I ran to her.
A horn blared, and I barely stopped myself in time before getting flattened by a delivery van. After it passed, I saw a look of horror on Francesca’s face.
“It’s okay, I’m all right,” I shouted.
But she wasn’t looking at me.
She was looking past me.
At the reflection in the building behind me.
I turned around and saw in that colorized version of this place — the real world — a crowd of people gathering around to view the mutilated body of a man who had been run over by a truck.
My body.
He had been going a just fraction faster than me and couldn’t avoid the collision as I had.
I turned back to Francesca, waited for a gap in the traffic, and ran to her.
She threw her arms around me.
I held her tight.
“You found me,” she said.
“Of course I did. Did you really have any doubt? I love you. Nothing could keep me from being with you.”
She smiled again, and we kissed.
Then she pulled back and looked at me, her brow crinkled with concern. “But what about him?”
I looked back at the reflection.
The accident scene that was there a moment ago was gone. It just showed what was going on here.
But neither of us were in that other world.
Our forms were absent from the reflection.
I turned my gaze back to Francesca’s blue-green visage.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” I told her. “We have a second chance to live our lives, to do all the things we planned.”
Then I added, “It’s what he would have wanted us to do.”
For more information about the author, his novels, television credits, podcast and more, visit RichHosek.com.
