House of Mirrors

"I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am." -Aaron Bleiberg and Harry Leubling.

---

Dark, gray clouds drifted across the full moon, briefly obscuring its yellow light. I stood in the center of a field just outside of town. The night was quiet and I could hear very little except the slight rustling of a few trees in the gentle breeze. There were no stars visible in the sky and no artificial light to guide my way. I'd stumbled quite a bit here and there but my pupils had adjusted to the darkness now and I could pick my way across the field to hop a fence and come to the dirt road I'd been looking for. For the past few nights, I'd gazed from my bedroom window out over the field only to spot what appeared to be a carnival tent on the horizon, but I'd come to look for it every morning and found that it was nowhere to be seen. Consumed by my curiosity, I'd decided to sneak out through my window and explore.

The town had been sleepy and quiet. The bakery windows were empty of items on display; the pizza place, which was such a busy location during the day, was empty and desolate now. Passing by these had filled me with a profound loneliness I could not have hoped to explain at the time, being only 12. This had not deterred me, however, and I'd found my way to the small dirt path.

---

I stepped lightly, trying to keep from making too much noise as I was not quite sure if I was being watched. The path bended to the right then, and passed through a line of trees. As I turned the bend, I came to a stop. There before me stood a colossal circus tent, one of thick purple and yellow stripes, strange and mysterious in the pale light of the moon. I looked around the clearing, wondering where the carnival workers must be. No other structures were to be found: not a wagon, not a tent--no sign of any human being. I stood tentatively, unable to decide if I should continue exploring or if I should return to town. A chill ran down my spine, although the night air was warm.

My curiosity overcame me and I approached the tent. Every step filled me with a greater sense of unease, but as I gained momentum, I found it impossible to stop. Something was drawing me toward the tent and it was no longer my choice if I went or not. I found my way to the entrance, near which stood a large sign. It read "House of Mirrors - Ticket required for entry" in large yellow letters. Opposite of it stood an abandoned ticket booth. A purple ticket rested on the counter. I reached my hand out to take it and noticed that I was trembling slightly. I tried to calm myself, watching my hand to see that my efforts were meaningless--I knew something was terribly wrong.

Unsettled, I took the ticket from the counter. Fear aside, this tent had been consuming my every thought for days now and I could not turn away. I had to know what terrible secrets were concealed within. Heart pounding, I pushed the flap out of the way and stepped inside. Before me stood an aisle leading forward, surrounded on either side by mirrors which stretched up the vast distance to the ceiling, looking bizarre in their exaggerated dimensions, all illuminated by the dim light of many lanterns hung upon the ceiling far above me. I gathered myself and stepped into the aisle. As I made my way slowly, I looked to either side of me, finding my image reflected in an infinity of mirrors, each smaller than the last, appearing to stretch beyond my realm of sight.

At length I came to a fork in the path. I chose the to explore the left path, wondering what oddities it might reveal. Here, the mirrors became stranger, distorting my reflection. In one mirror, I saw myself condensed impossibly thin, my head expanding from my body into a sort of bulb. The next stretched me until I was round like a ball. Mirror after mirror contorted my image in a variety of bizarre ways. My footsteps echoed amongst the many pathways of the mirrors as I walked, raising and lowering my right hand to see it grow and shrink in the mirrors to either side of me. No other sounds were to be heard. I was quite alone.

I stopped. As soon as the thought had entered my head, it seemed wrong. I gazed about myself anxiously. The feeling of being watched which I had felt earlier while walking the small dirt path to the clearing where the tent was hidden had returned. I had become so absorbed in my experimentation with the mirrors that I had lost track of where I had been in the maze. There was no hope of peering over the tops of the mirrors, as they reached far above my head. When looking up to the ceiling, I became dizzy with the scale of the labyrinth I'd wandered into. As I returned my gaze from the ceiling to the walls of mirrors around me, I began to sense that it was the mirrors which were watching me. I felt almost as if there were eyes hidden just beyond their reflective surfaces which were gazing at me intently, even hungrily.

I had to get out. I could no longer stand the gaze of those unseen eyes. I tried to retrace my steps, but as I approached the last fork, I found that I could not remember where to go. For all I could tell, the mirrors had shifted to create a new path. I began to panic, running through the forks of the maze without thought of where they might lead. I came to a large mirror in which I could see myself, undistorted. I gazed into my own terror-stricken green eyes, my red hair resting atop my head in a mop. My mouth gaped in surprise as something began to appear on the mirror. Red letters grew on the surface of the mirror, spelling out "COWARD" in what appeared to be blood. My image in the mirror grew white in the face, fainted, and then lay upon the ground, whithering away into nothing. I stood transfixed, staring at my own dead body, terrified and disoriented.

I turned from the mirror, breaking its hold on me and running in the direction from which I had come, only to slam into another mirror that had appeared behind me. It did not budge. I put my hand to my head, nursing the bump that was forming from my collision. On this appeared a new set of letters, spelling "FOOL." My reflection guffawed complacently, seeming to find my collision humorous. In his delight, he choked, falling backward from the surface of the mirror, grasping desperately at his throat as he struggled to take in air, but failed.

I turned to my right, checking for a mirror before proceeding. My heart raced as I searched the walls of mirrors for path openings and scoured my brain in an attempt to remember how I had come to where I was, feeling their eyes upon me and full of ill intent. I came to the end of a hallway, seeing a new label appearing on the mirror, "LOST." My reflection stared at me morosely, hands against the mirror in a plea to escape. I did not stay to see the resolution of his pleas, but turned left and continued my journey through the maze. I reached a dead end and pressed my hands against the mirrors, trying them to see if any would give way to pressure. Not one moved, every was as solidly in-place as the last. Growing impatient, I clenched my teeth and punched one of them. It did not crack, but rather, from where my fist had made contact, a new label grew outwards, "IRASCIBLE." Being 12, I had no idea what this meant, but when my reflection stomped into view with a face contorted with rage, I got the general idea. I ran from the dead end, wandering the maze in the dim light of the lamps above, hardly able to see more than ten feet ahead of me in any direction. The many reflections surrounding me had my head spinning and as I ran, new labels began to appear all around me. I did not read them, but ran from them as fast as I could, terrified of what they would reveal, lost in the maze, hopeless.

I no longer had the slightest sense of where I was or where the door might be. In all my wandering I had never found anything that looked like an edge of the tent. It seemed the maze was even more massive in size than it had appeared to be from outside. I sat down in place, tired of running and feeling too desperately lost to have any hope of escaping. In the mirror before me grew "DEFEATED." I watched the mirror closely, not seeing any sign of my reflection. Just then, my image came tumbling in from the top of the mirror high above me, a hangman's noose about my neck as I fell toward the ground. Just feet short of touching, my mirrored self reached the end of the rope. My neck cracked and my corpse hung there, swaying slightly.

Shocked and disgusted, I took my face in my hands and began to rock back and forth. Who was I? Why was I here? How was I ever to get out?

Then a thought occurred to me.

Who was the boy in the mirror?

Is that me?

It didn't have to be.

I wrapped my arms about my torso, hugging myself. I returned my gaze to the boy in the mirror, dangling by the neck from the long rope. He looked like me. I had never known a mirror to show anything but what was before it. But what is a mirror? This mirror didn't show me, did it? I placed my hand around my throat, checking for a rope. No rope. No, I was not the boy in the mirror. The boy in the mirror didn't exist.

With that, the image and the label faded. Were they real? I couldn't say; they were gone now. I pinched myself and felt pain. I am real and I am not the image that was in that mirror. I was not defeated.

I stood up. I looked around me, the maze looming in every direction. Inescapable. Or was it? I closed my eyes and cleared my mind. In my head, I saw the many images of myself swimming in a sea of doubt. I could not allow them to make me lose sight of who I was. I did not allow myself to become stranded in this ocean, though. I saw ahead of me a single star, a point of light suspended in the stormy sky, shining down on me from a small break in the brooding clouds overshadowing the tormented sea. I kept my eyes on that star, its radiance and clarity. I opened my eyes and saw that ahead of me a path had opened. It was the path I had entered through: a straight hall leading directly to the door. I walked calmly down this path until I reached the exit flap.

---

The sky had cleared. The moon glowed brightly, casting its yellow light onto the clearing. My eyes adjusted quickly and I began my walk back to the dirt path to town. I took the ticket from my pocket and tore it to pieces, scattering them as I left. I turned the corner around the line of trees and the fields came into sight, along with the gentle twinkle of lights in the town. I returned there and never once looked back.

Updated: 06/20/09 2:43 AM 1 comment | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Summer's Heat in September

As Ryan walked home from school, he fumed over the horrible score he'd got on his essay. He had worked on that paper for three days, spending hours trying to find exactly the right literary devices to explain. He hadn't even enjoyed reading The Lord of the Flies, so he didn't understand why Mrs. Lane would expect him to know what the characters symbolize. To him, Ralph was Ralph and Jack was Jack. Trying to explain them as representations of something else just made his head hurt. Still, he thought he did a decent job, but all his paper earned was a lousy D-! The paper was covered in Mrs. Lane's messy scribble: "What do you mean here?" and "use better transitions"--that sort of thing. Her grading was too harsh for the first paper of the year. Between football practice and this horrible project, Ryan's freshman year was turning out to be more stress than he had counted on.

In his distraction, Ryan took a step to cross the street without looking for cars. As he did so, a loud horn snapped him out of his brooding thoughts. A small white pickup truck had screeched to a halt just feet away from him. Ryan, more aggravated than startled, gave the astonished-looking driver the bird and continued crossing the street. As he stepped onto the other curb, he began to think of the other day, when Zach had pushed him too far while he was trying to focus on writing this paper. Zach was his 17-year-old brother who never passed up an opportunity to make fun of him. The other day, Zach had walked into the living room, where Ryan had been working at the computer, and stood behind him, reading what he wrote as he typed the final draft of his paper into a word processor. After a few moments of silent observation, Zach had laughed and nudged him in the arm, saying, "That's a simile, not a metaphor, and you're using the wrong 'their,' wiener."

Ryan had always been sensitive about the fact that Zach was much more successful in school than he was, so the teasing pulled his attention away from his work. He'd wheeled around out of the
chair and stood up, shoving Zach away from him. "I didn't ask for your help. Stop being a dick and let me do my work."

Zach had laughed and backed off, saying "Okay, okay. Don't get so fired up, you might hurt yourself," but the damage was done. Ryan, who had already been having a hard enough time focusing on his paper as it was, couldn't think of anything to write and sat in frustration at the keyboard late into the night, trying to find some way to finish the paper. It was Zach's fault that he hadn't been able to focus enough to get more than a D- and Ryan couldn't have resented him more for it.

Ryan stepped onto the browning front lawn of his house, the dry grass crunching beneath his feet. It had to be at least 100 degrees out and Ryan had worked up a sweat while walking home, one he hadn't noticed until now. He wiped a hand across his forehead as he reached the front door, opening it and stepping inside. The window air conditioner was on and he closed the door as he came in to keep the cool air from escaping, if you could call it cool. The terrible heat was too much for the old window unit and the air in the house was still stuffy and uncomfortably warm. Both parents were still at work, but Zach was already home, sitting at the dining room table and eating a large bowl of breakfast cereal. Zach was much taller than Ryan, and was slumped over the table as he ate. Ryan thought he looked complacent and dumb, like a cow munching grass. He hurried by the table without a word, not wanting to talk to him. As he stepped into the hallway, he heard Zach call from behind "Good to see you too, wiener!" Ryan ground his teeth together in irritation and stepped into his room, slamming the door.

---

Ryan had spent the rest of the day in his room, in too poor a mood to do much of anything. He was quiet at dinner that night and ignored Zach's occasional jabs. He didn't mention the D- to his parents--that could wait until the next progress report. After dinner, he'd gone straight back to his room and went to bed early. He had trouble sleeping. His room was oppressively hot and he was too preoccupied with the resentment he felt toward his brother to get any sleep. He got out out of bed and walked to the window, hoping to feel at least a slight breeze. The night air was hardly cooler than the heat of the day and there wasn't a bit of relief to be found. Ryan looked up at the moon, hoping to experience the feeling of calm he usually felt when he saw it. The moon hovered in the sky, indifferent to his problems.

He gave up on the window and turned to pace around his room, gazing at the items scattered here and there. The room was messy and the floor was littered with bits of sports equipment and books. On the wall was mounted a small basketball hoop that had been there since he was very young. He hadn't used it in a long time, but he liked how it looked. He picked a bundled up sock off the ground and threw it at the hoop. The sock hit the rim and bounced away: he'd missed. Ryan sneered and thought, "Well, that figures." He returned to his bed and laid down, hoping he could fall asleep. Sleep didn't come and he had a long night.

---

The next morning, Ryan woke up around eight and went outside, hoping to find some way to get his mind off things. It was Saturday and he didn't have school. He had plenty of homework to do, but he didn't want to deal with that now; it could wait until tomorrow. He hadn't expected to see anyone else up this early but when he reached the street, he spotted Danny Madsen and Craig Florence sitting nearby on the curb. Danny, who was 14 and in many of the same classes as Ryan, gave a friendly wave and the two got up and walked over. Danny's freckled cheeks rounded animatedly as he said, "Hey Ryan."

Ryan found Danny's goofy smile humorous despite his poor mood. "Hey Danny, Hey Craig." Craig was 15 and was trying to grow a mustache (but had succeeded only in accumulating a bit of peach fuzz on his upper lip).

"Hey there, what do you want to do?" Craig asked. "We've just been sitting here talking about how we wish we could think of something."

Ryan looked around the neighborhood, pondering about what the three of them could do. Nothing came to mind. "I dunno, why do you ask me?"

Danny tapped his index finger against his chin, apparently deep in thought. "I know, let's shoot some hoops!" He pointed at the basketball hoop mounted over Ryan's garage door.

Ryan frowned. The last place he wanted to be right now was around his house--Zach might see fit to pester him. "Alright, let's walk down to the high school and use their courts."

"Why can't we just use your hoop?" Danny asked.

"I dunno, I just don't feel like playing here."

Craig shook his head. "It's too hot to go half way across town just to use their hoops. Let's just play here."

Ryan tried to argue them out of it, but they couldn't be persuaded. Defeated, he fetched a ball from his garage and they began to play a game of horse. Ryan's shooting was no better than it had been the night before. He lost game after game, and his shots became more erratic as his frustration grew. By the third game, he was muttering profanities under his breathe every time he missed a shot.

Craig heard one of these and commented on it, "You having an off day, man?" He seemed genuinely concerned. "You're usually a lot better than this."

Ryan looked back. "Yeah, been an off day." That's all he said about it.

As Ryan's next turn came up, he grabbed the ball and picked a spot to shoot. As he stood there, trying to focus on his form, Zach came walking out of the house. He stopped and stood, watching Ryan line up his shot. Ryan tried to ignore him and threw the ball. It slammed against the backboard and bounced off towards Danny, who caught it. It hadn't even touched the rim. Zach let out a laugh, "Can't get anything right this week, huh?"

Ryan locked his gaze on the garage door, trying to will himself out of hearing Zach.

"What's wrong? Can't hear me, wiener?" Zach walked up to him, grinning as he waved a hand in front of his eyes. "I'm right here, see?"

Ryan shoved the hand out of his face. "Get out of here Zach, I don't want to hear your shit right now." It was Craig's turn to shoot but he and Danny had stopped playing and were watching the two brothers cautiously, not sure what to expect.

Zach had stopped grinning and was looking at Ryan, irritated. "What did you say?"

Ryan turned to face him, shoving him away. "I said I don't want to hear your shit!"

Zach stepped forward and returned the shove, pushing him back. "That isn't how you should talk to your older brother. Don't be a snot."

As he said this, Ryan's mind was filled with wild, angry thoughts. His teeth clenched and all the brooding thoughts of the past week transformed into pure malice. He approached Zach, scowling, and swung his fist, hitting him in the gut.

Danny and Craig let out a gasp. Danny followed shortly thereafter with an "Oh crap!"

Zach, caught off guard, had been winded. He grabbed his stomach and fell to his knees, trying to catch his breath. Ryan, fury embodied, saw this and his anger doubled. He stared at his brother with absolute hatred and kicked him in the side of the head, hard. Zach's body slumped over and his head struck the concrete of the driveway with a sickening crack.

This noise snapped Ryan out of his rage. He stood above his brother, mouth hanging open. Craig had run up behind him and was holding him in place, but he wasn't struggling. Suddenly, the severity of what he had just done hit him like a brick. He stared in numb disbelief at his brother laying there, not breathing. Danny crouched beside Zach, saying "Zach? Zach? Can you hear me? Say something, dude!"

Ryan's stomach dropped. For a moment he felt he had killed his brother. Just a few seconds later, however, Zach opened his eyes, looking up at them with slight confusion. Danny gave a big smile and said, "Hey man, are you okay?"

Zach laid there, looking around a bit. "Yeah man, my head feels like I was hit by a train though. That was a good kick, Ryan." Ryan broke free from Craig's arms and walked over to his lawn, losing control of his stomach and puking.

After retching a few times, he walked back to the others where Zach was now sitting up. Ryan got on his knees next to his brother. "I'm so sorry Zach. I don't know what I was thinking. God, I feel so stupid right now."

Zach smiled, rubbing his eyes. "It's ok, bro. I didn't mean to piss you off so much."

Ryan looked at Zach's head and frowned. "You should go see a doctor. You might have gotten a concussion."

"Nah, I'm alright. I don't want to get you in trouble with Mom and Dad."

Danny shook his head and said, "We don't have to tell them what happened. We can say that you fell off your bike and hit your head on the sidewalk. You should go see a doctor though."

Zach felt his head and grimaced. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

Ryan got up quickly. "Alright, I'll go tell Mom."

Craig ran to get Zach's bike and lay it on the driveway. Danny stayed with Zach, making sure he could continue to talk. Ryan walked to the front door, rehearsing the story he would be telling his mother in a moment. As he did so, the heat of the day seemed less oppressive and the brooding thoughts that had consumed him the past week became only a memory.

Updated: 04/22/09 8:55 PM 6 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!