Smile

I used to smile at myself in mirrors. I heard as a kid that the simple act of smiling releases the happy chemicals in your brain, and I figured the result would be twofold if I saw myself doing it. Kind of like proving to myself that I could still smile at myself even if things weren’t going well. That I could make myself feel better in some small, simple way. It became a habit, something I’d do without thinking while I washed my hands—a bit odd in public restrooms, but it was easy to pretend I was checking my teeth for stuck bits of food.

I don’t do it anymore.

I’ve always had an overactive imagination. If I think too hard about anything in particular I can make it as terrifying or miraculous as I want. I easily see silly faces in the pattern of marble tiling or those popcorn ceilings. As a kid it meant I was disproportionately frightened by even the most mildly-scary imagery, but it also meant I could entertain myself endlessly with games of make-believe. Have you ever believed too hard?

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled into the bathroom at about three in the morning to pee. The cute moon-shaped night light next to the sink was on, but otherwise I hadn’t disturbed the darkness lest it wake me up too much. I was not ready to be sentient and I didn’t have to be at work until eight. As always, muscle memory kicked in while I washed my hands, and I grinned at myself sleepily.

This was not the first time I thought I saw the whites of my eyes turn black for that brief moment, or the first time my smile seemed slightly too wide in the vague blue light. It had happened enough times by now that I automatically shrugged it off as either an effect of my sleepiness or my imagination working overtime as usual.

It was, however, the first time I saw the reflection blink.

Don’t misunderstand, my overactive imagination does not extend to wondering whether or not I’ve hallucinated something. I have a very firm grasp on reality. My reflection blinked. I hadn’t.

And it hadn’t just blinked. It lowered its lids slowly—unnaturally—and then opened them again just as slowly. It was still my reflection, but in that moment something profoundly not-me had occupied my visage. Or maybe it was me, but a different me.

The smile fell off my face, but remained in the mirror for at least a second longer before I recognized myself again.

I turned on every light in the house. I draped a jacket over the mirror by my front door. I told Alexa to play calming jazz music while I sat in my living room and put on my favorite movie. Something about the light and the noise seemed like it would banish the uncanny image from my mind, but I didn’t see or hear any of it. I just saw the smile.

In the morning, the fear abated. It’s easy to tell yourself that you overreacted once the sun is shining and you have emails to write and meetings to attend. I smiled at myself in my workplace’s bathroom mirror out of habit and was relieved and vindicated to see that it looked normal as anything. By the time I got home from work the next day I couldn’t believe how scared I’d been of something that was probably just the lingering remnants of a weird dream. I told myself I’d stop binge-watching so many of those shows the streaming services call ‘mind-bending.’

I didn’t get up to go to the bathroom that night, but I was up before the sun anyway. Some idiot on the highway that backs up to my apartment was honking wildly at an ungodly hour. I stared at the ceiling in annoyance for about thirty minutes until they finally stopped. Realizing it was too early to run any errands or go to the gym but too late to bother going back to sleep, I rolled out of bed to find that the air was much colder than I’d expected. I decided an especially hot shower was in order and checked the thermostat as I shuffled toward the bathroom, cursing myself for forgetting to set the heater before I went to bed.

There’s a full-body mirror at the end of my apartment’s small hallway, one of those big statement ones you lean against the wall instead of hanging up. I peered blearily at the thermostat which told me the heat was indeed on and running at a very expected 76 degrees, but caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

For a moment I stared at the thermostat, not turning my head because I had suddenly remembered the mirror was there. I tried to remember if I’d left a window open or something—maybe a cat or raccoon had gotten in. I remained frozen for several seconds until I saw it again. The same movement. Like someone gesturing.

As if my head was an oscillating fan on an automated swivel, I looked mechanically towards the mirror. The unduly-cold air constricted against my skin. My reflection stood at the end of its mirror hallway, in front of its mirror thermostat, in its mirror pajamas. Except it was not facing the thermostat like I was. It was facing me. And it was smiling.

Frantically, I flipped every light switch on again. I avoided the reflective glass of my oven and microwave, even the picture frames hanging near my kitchen table. Like a child I crept along the wall that led into the hallway, and peered around the corner.

And saw nothing.

I wish I’d been comforted by this—the fact that there was no uncanny figure looking right at me, smiling while I stared in horror. But that’s the thing. There was no figure. There was no head peeking around the corner like a character in a cartoon. I had no reflection.

This, at least, filled me with slightly less dread than the Not-Me. I hesitantly crept into the hall, baffled, trying unsuccessfully to convince myself that this time I was actually hallucinating—that only ten years into the workforce, the unceasing strain of hustle culture had finally broken my brain and it was trying to give me some kind of sign in the form of an allegory about how individualism and self-obsession were toxic, or something. Once again, with all of the lights on, I was feeling braver. I went right up to the mirror which might as well have been a continuation of my own hallway now that I couldn’t see myself in it anymore. It was something other than a mirror.

Like a dumb blonde in a horror film I made my poorest decision yet and reached out in wonder to touch the surface.

The instant my fingertips made contact, my reflection reappeared—behind me. Smiling, with teeth unfamiliarly long and jagged. Blinking, at an unnaturally-slow speed.

Before I could scream, it pushed me forward into the mirror’s surface. It was, indeed, still a mirror. I hit it bodily, shattering it in its ornate spray-paint-gold frame. As I struggled to regain my footing, I was struck by the absolute certainty that this was the worst possible thing that could have happened.

Finally I managed to turn around, my back to the broken mirror. There stood the Not-Me, grinning like I’d grinned at it countless times in restaurant bathrooms on bad first dates or at work on a stressful day or in my own house whenever I happened to pass by a reflection, because I’d been doing it since childhood.

I had taught it to do this.

“Now we can be together for real,” it said happily, in a voice that was an approximation of mine, but not a passable one—it sounded like a parrot that had been taught to repeat some phrases but didn’t know what any of them meant. It smiled so wide I was sure the corners of its mouth would tear.

I blinked at it in wordless fear—at its appearance, yes, but also at the thought I’d just had: now that this thing was on the other side of the mirror, what would happen to me?

“You don’t look happy about it,” it said, still smiling, still in the same cheery voice that was mine-but-not-mine. “You should smile more.”

There was a macrame wall-hanging on the wall beside me, right across the hall from my laundry room. Faster than I’d known I could move, I yanked it off its hook, gripping the whimsical driftwood dowel like a baseball bat and bringing it down with all my strength on the Not-Me’s head. As it howled inhumanly, I dodged past it, fled down the hallway, careened out my front door, got into my car, and drove away.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been staying at cheap hotels outside of town, never at the same one for more than a night or two. I don’t really know why, but I think that thing is hunting me. I think it wants to…to be together.

I’ve googled everything I can think of—disappearing reflection and smile tulpa and mirror self attack—and found nothing. I think about calling an exorcist or something from the room’s phone, imagining any number of movies where a monster-hunter traps a ghost in a mirror and shatters it to trap the apparition forever. I cover any reflective surface and stay inside all day. I order groceries and necessities delivered to the hotel room. I haven’t been back to my apartment but I know my neighbors or a friend must have come by and found it empty, because I’ve been receiving a steadily-increasing number of texts and calls—none of which I can answer, because the screen’s surface is reflective. I ordered one of those matte anti-glare screen covers for it but I’m too scared to try to look at any messages before it arrives.

Yesterday before I left for a new hotel, feeling bad for ignoring all of the probably-very-worried friends and family trying to contact me, I ventured to the lobby to mail one of the complimentary postcards to my parents, with an unconvincing ‘please don’t worry about me’ scribbled in shaky, smeary pen. The lobby had one mirror, a little ways down the hallway near the elevator. I hadn’t seen it the day before, when I checked in, but as I slipped the postcard into the hotel’s outgoing mail box I noticed it and my heart dropped into my shoes.

I still don’t have a reflection.