A Moment In Reflection

Bill drove through his neighborhood and wondered if it should feel different. He rolled down his windows, curious if he would hear people cheering, or nature thriving louder than usual.  But he didn’t. It was the same as it had always been, which was more unnerving than anticipated.

The song on the radio ended, making way for the same PSA he’d heard a dozen times today. “It’s a small price to pay for the safety of our reality.” A woman’s soothing voice was followed by a man’s firm statement. “And it’s the right thing to do.”

Bill rolled his eyes and turned off the radio. He shook his head, sighed, and turned down his street. It was crowded, more than any trash day, as each neighbor piled their curbs with mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Various sheets and blankets covered them, taped and fastened securely so as not to be blown away.

Yeah, thought Bill, our whole reality would end if a squirrel saw its reflection.

He scratched at the dry skin beneath his untrimmed beard as he pulled into his driveway. He took the keys from the ignition and let his head drop onto the headrest behind him. 

A moment, he told himself, that’s all he needed was a moment. He was fine.

The slam of a nearby door jerked him from his rest. He collected himself, before looking towards the source of the noise, and saw his neighbor carrying a large mirror down his porch steps. Not wanting to be seen sitting in his car, Bill stepped out.

How Rudy stayed overweight was a mystery to Bill; he always seemed to be in motion. Even now, while he carried the covered mirror to the curb, he moved as if he had plenty of things to do afterwards. It hadn’t bothered Bill before, but now that he was feeling sedentary, he couldn’t help but feel like Rudy was showing off.

On the way to his mailbox, Bill gave an obligated and awkward wave as he walked within a few feet of the curb. He’d hoped that Rudy’s chin-lead, reverse-nod would be the end of it. It wasn’t.

Rudy gave a wry grin, still hauling the mirror. “Great day to be alive, huh?” Bill disagreed, though he gave no response other than a perk in his brow. He opened the back of his mailbox and reached a hand inside as Rudy reached the end of his curb. “I told the Lord, I promised Him, I said I’d be a better person if He just let us be.” The mirror hit the curb with a metallic thud, and Rudy wiped his dusty hands on his shirt.

Bill hummed an acknowledgement as he lumped the mail into the crux of his arm and closed the back end of the mailbox.

He’d begun to walk away before Rudy’s raspy and jovial voice called out to him. “Hey, man, I never got to ask you,” Bill stopped, midway up his driveway, and pursed his lip. He knew where this was going. “You okay?” There was silence. “Yanno, with her being, uh” More silence, this one feeling like a decade, as Rudy panicked to come to terms with his phrasing. “Gone?”

Bill turned and, as casually as he could, nodded and waved off the question. “Oh!” He said, as if the absence hadn’t been sitting on his mind since she’d left. “Yeah. Thanks.” He lied. He turned, trying his damnedest to end the conversation then and there. “All good.”

“Okay,” Rudy replied, unconvinced from the curb. “If you ever need anything, just knock, okay?” He spoke to Bill’s back.

“Will do!” Bill quickly hopped up his own porch steps, fumbling in his pocket for his keys. He felt Rudy’s eyes on him, still, as he put the keys into the door and pushed his way through. The door closed behind him, and Bill put his back to it.

Just take a moment, he told himself; he just needed one moment.

After a long sigh, he looked down at the mail in his arm. He began thumbing through it as he stepped around the empty cardboard boxes on his way to the coffee table that was littered with dirty dishes and empty cans. After a large, pink postcard, with bold black font  that read “Cover and Discard Your Mirrors!”, another envelope struck Bill’s attention.

To anyone else, it would have been considered junk mail: a small envelope that could have been easily discarded by anyone else. Even its intended recipient would have recognized it as junk mail and thrown it in the trash. But to Bill, it may as well have been a wildfire.

His hand dove into his pocket and pulled out his phone, redialing one of the few recent calls he’d made. He didn’t wait for the conversation to escalate, nor did he wait for the post office employee to finish introducing themselves. Only seconds after the call had been answered, Bill erupted. “I have been trying to tell you people that Alyssa Parker doesn’t live here anymore! I don’t understand why I have to call three times before you get it through your thick heads, and change her damn address!”

There was a pause on the other end of the line before the voice responded, sheepishly. “Uh, I can look into that for you, sir, would you please provide the address in question?”

“It’s twenty-five, north,” He froze. Without thinking, he’d turned and glanced at the full-length mirror that sat in his dining room, and mid-sentence, he noticed the coffee table in the reflection was clean. No dishes sat upon it, no empty cans of beer or soda littered its top. What’s more, no empty boxes sat around it. The space was as neat as the day she’d left. What’s more, he didn’t see his own reflection at all.

“Sir?” It was a trick of the light, he thought; one step closer would fix all of this. So he took a step, and then another. “Sir, are you there?” Bill ended the call and dropped the phone to the floor. He came within a breath of the reflection, watching shadows dance across the floor of a room he wasn’t in. Before long, the shadows were gone.

A figure stepped in front of Bill, one that startled him so fiercely that he fell backwards. He made no effort to recover, because the man in the mirror was him. Or rather, it should have been.

The Bill in the mirror was clean-shaven. His flannel shirt had no wrinkles or stains. After some investigation, he ran a hand through his hair to make it the best it had ever looked.

And in that small moment, Bill understood what the Other Bill was doing. They were going out to Margarett’s birthday party.  They’d bought her the whole box set of her favorite show, and a bottle of wine. But there was only one problem with all of that: Margarett was Alyssa’s friend.

“No,” Bill stood up as the memories, which didn’t belong to him, began to flood his head: a dream trying to justify the series of events that lead up to it. “No, no, no. She’s,” And though he knew what would happen, it happened to his horror. Another figure stepped into the reflection: a tall girl, with long hazel hair that hung to her waist. Her thin wrists crossed over Other Bill’s hips and pulled him close.

If Bill hadn’t already been sitting down, he would’ve fallen over again. With one hand holding him up, his other grasped his forehead like a vice. He couldn’t hear the words she said as he watched her lips move in the mirror. But he remembered every word after she said it. “Don’t go looking too nice, now.”

Other Bill smiled, turned his head, and kissed her.

“No!” Bill rolled, putting his elbows and forehead on the floor. “What did I do?” He racked his brain. “What did I do differently?!”

A voice popped into the room, as clear as day, and as warm as honey. “You’ll go mad asking yourself that.” Having no certainty as to whether or not he was losing his mind, Bill ignored the voice for some time. His fingers curled around the back of his head, and his face turned a desperate shade of red. “I wish I could fix it for you.”

Bill’s vision blurred with tears, though he could hear the footsteps drawing closer, could see a pair of feet, as if made of mirrors, stopping right next to his head.

“But I can’t.”

Bill turned his head to the mirror once more, despite knowing fully well what had happened to Other Bill. He watched the light from the doorway come upon the clean table, showing two very happy silhouettes, before the light vanished with the shutting door.

“However,” The voice continued, knowing it now had Bill’s full attention.

Shaking, Bill turned his head back to the figure standing beside him. A thin man, made of no skin or features, only reflection, looked down upon him.

“I can tell you how to make that reality,” the man pointed to the mirror, then back to the floor. “Into this one.”

“You’re him, aren’t you? You’re the one they stopped.”

“Tried. To stop.” The man corrected. Though his face bore no mouth, nor semblance of any expression, the annoyance was prevalent in his tone. “And you’re the only one who didn’t listen to them.” The figure knelt closer to Bill, who continued to quiver. The figure’s elbows rested on its knees as its fingers tented. “I believe we can help each other, Bill.” He said. “The only question is,” Bill’s attention turned back to the mirror. “What are you willing to do to win her back?”