Mirror, Mirror

What if mirrors aren’t just our reflections, but actually ourselves, living a different life? What if it only stops and looks the same when you look at it, but as soon as you look away, your own different lives continue?

Just think about it. Consider my proposal for just a few seconds. I know it seems like a long shot, but I’m certain it’s real. And no, I’m not mentally insane.

It’s been happening to me ever since I was twenty-one. I can’t remember exactly when it started, but I think it was sometime during autumn of that year. The weather was really starting to get cold and I was preparing to go out to work, so put on a cute woollen beanie in front of the mirror. And that’s when it first happened. My reflection smiled. I know what you’re thinking; my reflection didn’t smile by itself, and that I was the one who smiled without realising. But you’re wrong. There’s no way in hell that I would have been smiling, because I had awoken that morning to find my beloved pet bird dead. Put that horrible event on top of having to go to a job that I hated, and I was in one hell of a bad mood. Again, no way I would have ever smiled at the mirror, no matter how good I looked. Nonetheless, like any normal person would have done, I ignored the freakish occurrence and went to work. It never crossed my mind again.

Until a few months later. I was putting on my make-up, as I always do, and as soon as I had finished putting on a dark shade of purple eye shadow, the reflection of me appeared to be wearing a light green shade instead. Thinking I was seeing things, I blinked, and the colour returned to normal. I shrugged it off as me needing more sleep, and again, I went to work without thinking about it again.

Little things kept on occurring for another year or so, but they were so minor that I didn’t fret for too long about it. Sometimes, you perceive things as a different colour for a split second. Sometimes you see something move a little when it really didn’t. It happens to everyone. Like anyone else would do, I shrugged it off.

But then something happened that I couldn’t ignore. Don’t go thinking that I really am crazy, because I’m not. I swear. Besides, if you thought there was no possibility that there might be any truth in what I was saying, you would have stopped reading this a long time ago.

I was plucking my eyebrow the first time I saw him. Out of the corner of my eye, a man walked past behind me. Out of complete shock, I dropped my tool and spun around, heart racing as I wondered who was in my apartment, how and why. But no one was there. My bedroom was empty and quiet. It was so still it was eerie. But there was definitely a man walking past and smiling at me. There was no way my mind would have made that up. He was real. Needless to say, I was super spooked and on edge for the next few days. I did my best to avoid mirrors, fearing that something weird would happen again.

On my way to work, I drove past a billboard. Every other day, I would just glance at it, realise I wasn’t interested whatsoever in the product, and move on. But this one was different. There was a picture of five young men, looking dark and scary, with the words “Avenged Sevenfold” branded below them. It had a release date of their new album on it, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was the man in the middle. He was the one who I had seen earlier. The one who I thought was in my room. He was the man I saw through the mirror.

Once I arrived at work, I became lost in thought and spent most of my time surfing the internet and finding more out about this man. He was a rock star, a lead singer in a metal band, who grew up not far from where I had. His name was Matt, or M Shadows if he was on stage. I found him very attractive and couldn’t help but be let down when I read that he was in a relationship and had been for many years.

But, not worrying about his personal life, how the hell did I see him? It puzzled me for weeks. Matt definitely wasn’t in my room; no one was. And mirrors… Well, at the time I believe they were simply mirrors. All they were was a piece of glass that reflected what was happening in my world. That being said, I know better now. I think that’s when I first started to really contemplate what was going on. It was 2007, I was twenty-four, and I thought briefly that I was going insane. Hell, who wouldn’t think that if they started seeing strangers in their reflection? Matt showed up numerous times, sometimes for a split second, and other times he’d be there for up to five seconds. He’d smile at me with dimples, be expressionless, his mouth would be moving as if he was talking, and once he even blew me a kiss.

Then one day, after seeing Matt once again as well as seeing my own reflection move to blow a kiss back to Matt, I snapped. I called in sick and stayed home for a week, searching for theories on what could be going on. That’s when I stumbled across the idea that mirrors are simply a barrier between two worlds, and that you stop to look in the mirror at the same time, but then leave to live different lives. Of course, the worlds were relatively similar, since you’re stopping at the same time in the same place to look at the same mirror, but there were slight changes. Things like colours could be slightly altered. A tiny movement could have occurred differently in one world. Minor incidences that everyone just ignored or didn’t see. But for some strange reason, I was seeing them.

With further investigating, there were some theories that sometimes the barriers were weak, and that if you’re lucky, you can see through into your other life via the mirror. I instantly knew that was happening with me. The mirrors were barely holding back the slight differences, and I could see them. I could see Matt, I could see my other self moving a bit differently, I could see the colours… I saw it all, and it was beginning to happen much more frequently and much clearer.

One day, I decided to sit down and focus my thoughts. I cleared my mind and relaxed, then approached the mirror in my bedroom. There was my reflection, looking just as nervous and freaked out as I was. I had no idea if it was going to work, but I had to try. But what would happen if it did work? What exactly did that mean? With a small sigh, I picked up my pen and notepad before looking back at the mirror. My reflection stared back at me, arms at her side and widened eyes. My heart skipped a beat as I realised she wasn’t moving. I gulped and looked down at the notepad and wrote in big letters before holding the page up to face the mirror.

“I can see you,” it read. I saw her reading it before she picked up her own notepad, though it was exactly the same as mine.

“I can see you too,” she replied and I froze. I couldn’t believe it was real. The barrier between our worlds was failing and it was scaring the living hell out of me. What did all of this mean? My reflection suddenly put her notepad face down before spinning around. I saw Matt for a fraction of a second before he disappeared and my reflection went back to ‘normal’, showing myself holding the notepad with my writing on it.

It took a while for it all to sink in, but once it had, I tried communicating with my other self once more. It worked. Again and again, it worked. Whenever we were alone, we could have a conversation. I learned much about my other self, the tiny changes and the bigger changes. There, I had a completely different job. My family situation was different. The man who, in this world, didn’t know I existed was dating my other self, and had been for years. In that other world, I was a very happy Angelina Shadows, living the dream. It depressed me, but also comforted me as well. At least I was happy, somewhere… Knowing that made me feel like I had to share what I knew, to try and give people comfort and hope of some sort.

So this brings me back to me writing this. There has to be some sort of record of the truth. I have to share it, since I’m one of the few people who can break through this barrier. As I’ve aged, I’ve been able to establish a stronger connection to the other world. In the weekends, you’ll be able to find me offering you some entertainment. I say it like that because hardly anyone believes it’s real, though it is indeed as real as the seat beneath you right now. People come to me and I tell them, with the help of the other me, what their life is like in the other world.

I encourage you to try to break through it too. It is possible, with some concentration, I’m certain it is. It happened by mistake to me, for whatever reason, but if you try hard enough, you can succeed. But in case you don’t, visit Angelina Shadows, in California, and I’ll tell you all there is to know about your other life.

Trust me; glancing through that barrier is worth it.