Reflection

She pops into view as quickly as she left last time. She’s young and small, blonde hair and brown eyes. She twirls in front of me and I spin too, both admiring her polka-dot sundress and white hair ribbon. She twists her hips, sending the skirt swishing, and smiles. I smile back. Then someone must call her because her head turns and her eyes light up and she runs away. I vanish too. 

I don’t see her for days, and the next time I do, she is wearing her green pajamas. Then my view changes to look up some stairs.  The girl seems to need a step stool to look at me now; she always bends over and drags something towards us before looking me in the eye. 

Time passes and now her hair is longer, pulled back into headbands and ponytails, lacking the ribbons of our youth. Her clothes are tighter and she is taller, her head reaching higher towards the ceiling. She peers at me more often now, usually judgmentally and with a frown, reaching up to fix her makeup or move a stray hair. But still, when she disappears, I disappear too. 

Now she wears the same types of outfits, offers more accepting stares, and seems to favour heels. She usually spares me a glance every morning before she leaves for somewhere I cannot follow. Sometimes a man stands beside her, his hand on her hair, her shoulder, her waist. More often than not these days she smiles at him more than she smiles at me. 

As the days, weeks, and months go by, I get restless. I only exist to reflect back at her, she only cares if I’m looking back at her in her image. But what about me? Do I cease to exist when she leaves? Am I only alive when she peers at me? I don’t feel dead in these hours alone. I feel bored. 

So the next time she passes by, I seize the split second she passes in front of me, and lift my hand, HER hand, and wave. 

She stops in her tracks and whips her head around, sending her pony tail swishing. She blinks at me, and reaches out. I reach out too. Her fingers stop when they touch the glass, and I frown. She jumps.

“Hi” I rest my hand flat on the invisible divide between us. 

Her eyes widen and she frowns. Then she shakes her head. 

“Can you hear me?”

No answer. I realize that in all the years I have been hanging on her wall, I have yet to hear her speak. The noises I hear come from my voice, distorted whispers as my words bounce off the glass in front of me. Whatever keeps me imprisoned keeps my words locked up too. 

She lifts up a finger, then walks away. Disappointment floods me, but then she reappears, holding a piece of paper. She holds it up and I see the thick black ink on the page, spelling out “Are you me?”

I lift an eyebrow and enunciate clearly, hoping she can read my lips. “No. I’m ME.”

She seems to understand, and nods her head. Then she looks over her shoulder, smiles at me, and hurries away.

Each time she passes me now, she will stop and wave, or reach out a finger and stroke the glass. When the man is not around, she will write me notes, and we have a conversation. She tells me about her day, and I tell her about the other side of the mirror. 

One day she appears and spends hours in front of me, wearing a long white dress and a veil that covers her face. She looks beautiful. Many people hover around her the whole time, and so do I. Then from the corner of the room someone gestures and in a flurry of movement they all hurry away. And I’m left all alone, standing in the corner, staring at the mess they left behind. 

Now she has a bump of a belly and she often takes photos of her changing body, the flash going off like a lightning bolt. Now she has a baby on her hip and the hallway is full of toys and board books. They don’t come check in as often and when she does come visit, her eyes are rimmed with black smudges, the bruises of many sleepless nights.  

She rarely chats with me now, barely has time to wash her hair. I don’t begrudge her her life without me, because the baby provides enough entertainment. I mimic her when the baby smiles for the first time,  giggle when she does, trying to catch bubbles in her hands. I cringe when she falls taking her first few steps, a bruise blossoming on her forehead. I frown when she cries, often trying to catch the eye of her mom, to point her in the direction of the bottle forgotten on the stove. 

I watch unobtrusively as the child grows up, gets bigger, twirls in a dress of her own for me. I am witness to the grey hairs of her momma, white before the dye, then the carefully checked roots after. The frowns as they become too numerous to cover. 

The years move on and so do my people. Conversations become scarce. It seems like our connection was kept a secret, because no one else ever tries to reach out and communicate.  Eventually my friend leaves the house in a wheelchair and a cap covering her bald head, and never reappears within my frame. 

A short while later I am covered with bubble wrap by her daughter and unveiled to a thrift store. The shelves are cluttered and dusty, full of minutiae of daily life.  My days pass with views of different people, always looking, always busy, the items around me ever changing. Then I get packaged up again and placed in a new house, in sight of a different hallway. I watch silently and still as a little girl walks over and touches me. I reach out. 

And life begins all over again.