The Man in the Mirror

It was you. It was you all along. 

It was us. 

There he is. I am. We are.

I’ve finally found you. After months of questioning, studying scene after scene, case after case. I nearly gave up the chase for justice and was going to allow you to wriggle away into the darkness you slithered from. False leads and miscommunication coupled with unobliging colleagues who seem to favor the shrouded recesses of humanity have forced me to the brink of madness in the hunt for you. Now, as I stand over this bathroom sink bespeckled with blood like raindrops on a windshield, I finally see your face. 

Our face. 

“Why?”, I say out loud as I accept the insanity of this revelation.

It is what you wanted. We desired. Deep in the shadowed pockets of truth. 

I am seething. Thankfully I am alone because I know I cannot contain the boiling rage set to erupt from within me. 

There it is. Me. Us. Your truest of selves. 

“Shut up!”, I bellow. I hang my head low and grip the sides of the sink tightly, trying to find some footing in my new reality. “What made you, or I, believe that all these deaths were necessary? There must be a cause. Tell me!”, I continue as I raise my head back up to meet the predatory, carnivorous eyes of my own sinister gaze.

You had no complaints when we were eradicating the filth that slipped through the law’s grasp.

I knew those killings had to mean something. Nearly every rapist, murderer, and lowlife that was acquitted or otherwise met with impunity after wreaking whatever havoc they saw fit was gruesomely slaughtered. I should have looked into it then, but I didn’t. I wanted them to pay for the things they did and when they all got their comeuppance, I won’t lie, I smiled. We all did. My coworkers and superiors, citizens and the victim’s families, the whole city. We smiled wide. 

You opened the door long ago and when I took my first steps out into the night, you did not object. 

“Because what you were doing”, I interrupted, “was right!”

Was it? It was murder. The law would disagree with your skewed views, but I never will. I am the realization of your own dark perspective. 

“The killings of those degenerates was justified!”, I screamed. I cannot believe what I’m saying. Who am I? What am I? What are we?

We are whole. We are one.

It responds with an unearthly potency. Each word is a shard of glass that rains across my own tongue. Our shared tongue, but the speech is not mine. I see my mouth moving, but foreign words leave from me. I am trapped in an ungodly conversation between sanity and lunacy.

No. I am me and that’s all. I must stay defiant. I squeeze my eyes tightly and hold my breath. I think of the linoleum floor beneath my feet. The porcelain sink that seems to be the only sane anchor I have left. The still air of the bathroom surrounds me and I find a soothing place within myself. Rage subsides and I can think clearly again. I exhale the cold, stale breath and free my eyes from the strain of darkness. Hope crashes onto the beach of my thoughts and peace washes over me. I slowly crane my neck up and, with all the courage and conviction I can summon up, hope to see only myself looking back at me. 

I am met with horror. I meet the stare of a monster. A cold-blooded beast of the land who knows no mercy. It has no patience for empathy and hunts for the sheer joy that its heinous chase brings it. Its blackened soul is charred with the ashes of its prey whose lives it extinguished without a moment of hesitation or remorse. I am staring into the hooded visage of death and it looks back into me with eyes of fire. I am shaken to my core, but I dare not show it. Although, I suspect it knows. After all... 

I am you. 

Feeble attempts at hasty meditation cannot get rid of me. You left the door open, unhinged it from its frame. I can and will freely pass through and you cannot stop me.

I am trembling. The words exit from my lips, but they are permeated with a frigid volubility that sets my teeth on edge. They are my thoughts, but not my thoughts. Pieces of my psyche so deeply buried that I am unaware of their existence until they are used against me like a knife in my back. It knows everything I’ve done and everything I know. Everything I am thinking, even right now. Does it know what I’ll do before I do it? Is it God?

I have to stop it. Put an end to this vicious path that it seems hellbent on continuing down. But how can I? It knows everything I think of...Unless I think of something I would never in my right mind do. I’ve lost my mind already so what else is there to lose, right? Unblinkingly and as swiftly as I can, with almost no hesitation and minimal thought, I pull my firearm from its holster and hold it up to my temple. A flash of shock moves across its face in an instant and I know that this was not on it’s mind. We stare into one another, unmoving, without words, thoughts, or gestures exchanged between the two of us. I have it on the ropes. It must 

realize there is no other course of action it can take then to move back beyond the door frame that it so joyously strode from. I have bested it... 

Blackness encompasses my vision. I am numb. I no longer feel the gun to my head, the floor beneath my feet or the quiet air of the bathroom around me. The first sensation I am met with is a cold wind that blows up my spine and nestles itself at the base of my skull. A biting, sharp intensity that almost brings me to tears. Next, visibility returns to me and I am entrapped within icy iron bars. Besides the piercing cold at the base of my skull and the white mist of my cold breath as I exhale, I cannot feel or see any other sensations.

I’ve seen these bars before in my dreams. I’ve had recurring dreams of bars and blackness for the past several months now. Were those the times when it took control of me? This must not be real.

I turn my head up and meet the eyes of my enemy; the only things between us are the bars that keep me here and my gun in its hands, pointed at me. Far behind it stands an empty door frame that swells with an enveloping entropy that pains me to look into. I stay fixated on the gun and creature who seeks to call my mind and body its home. That’s right. This entire time it has been looking into me, I’ve finally decided to stare back into the abyss and bear witness to the maniacal plans it has in store once it takes hold.

Who is the true alter here? 

I can feel its fingers tightening; Pulling back slowly on the trigger as if they were my own...Wait. They ARE my fingers. This is my mind. I created this space, these bars, that door frame, this monstrosity. I hold dominion over this place! 

I am beside myself in the blackness, holding a gun to my head as it holds one to mine. I will not be imprisoned, lost for eternity with the sunken crevices of my own mind while this thing parades around in my flesh. Not without a fight! It appears to my left, gun at my head and with a sneer it pulls the trigger. No sound bellows from the barrel but the vibrations of its fire reverberate through the nothingness. I am behind it, weapon at the base of its skull, and I pull the trigger as well with the same ferociously quiet intensity. It is beneath me now, physics holds no power here, and it fires up at me but misses. We dance this way for what seems like eternity. Each of us one step ahead yet in tune with each other until eventually... 

I move the weapon away from my temple. No shots were fired from it. I’m back within the bathroom drenched with sweat. No one is staring back at me from the mirror. It is just...me.