He was proud of himself. More so than he had been in a long
time. The new home was beautiful, and in it he could see his future before him.
On the final day of moving in, they invited all their friends over to
celebrate. They all talked, laughed, and drank and shared long into the night.
Finally, long after she’d gone to bed, he decided it was time to join her.
The
master bathroom was the crowning glory of the home. It was nearly 800 square
feet of heated tile and marble, with a full wall of mirrors behind dual sinks.
His side cabinet was also a mirror, perpendicular to the wall of mirrors over
the sinks. As he stood brushing his teeth with the cabinet open, he peered into
the dueling mirrors, facing off against each other into infinity.
“Infinity
is green…” he thought, as he looked at his own reflections shrinking off into
the distance, each one growing smaller and greener than the last.
Just
then he saw it; or rather thought he saw it. Near where his own reflection grew
too small to recognize as him, it was not him at all. The face was charcoal
black, with yellow eyes and pointed teeth. It didn't move with the rest of his
reflections, and in fact did not even seem to be awake, but there it was;
not-him staring back from a mirror.
He
slammed the cabinet shut and crawled into bed with her. He was fortunate enough
to write off the black reflection, the not-him, as something he’d drunk or
smoked that night, and nothing to be alarmed over.
The
next morning he woke up with the worst hangover he could remember. It took a
full three days for the pain in his head to subside.
Weeks
later, after a long day at work and a splitting headache, he let his glass of
scotch turn into two, and then three, and then four, and then when she offered
a smoke he joined her. Later, as he was preparing for bed, he suddenly
remembered the black reflection, the not-him, and couldn’t help his curiosity.
As
soon as the mirrors were facing each other and he put his own reflection in, he
saw it. It was closer this time, only a dozen reflections away. To his horror,
the not-him was moving this time, but without his other reflections. It seemed to be chanting,
or praying, it's eyes fixed on him.
The
next morning he woke up again with an atrocious hangover, and a headache that
would not go away. He initially had written off the vision in the mirror as
again something he’d drunk or smoked, but after a week of the same splitting
headache he couldn’t get it out of his head. Somewhere between too terrified to
look and know and too terrified to not know, he polished off the last of his
scotch and went to his beautiful master bathroom alone. He opened the cabinet
and looked into the reflections of reflections.
The
vision he was met with knocked him off his feet. The black face was closer
still… only 4 or 5 reflections away. It was looking directly at him with its
yellow eyes and repeating the same phrase- prayer or curse- over and over with
a sneering grin over its pointed teeth. It was laughing at him, seeming to enjoy his terror.
He
did not sleep at all that night.
The
next morning, he woke up and set up an appointment for a CT scan, without
telling her.
The
following afternoon, he was standing in a sterile room, alone with his doctor,
looking at an image of a brain… his brain, with a spot the size of an acorn
in it that was as black as the face in the mirror.
He
didn’t know how to tell her, but he knew it had to be said. He had half of a
bottle of wine after work, trying to come up with the words to say. After she’d
gone to bed, he finished the other half, and decided to look into the mirrors,
the green of infinity, one last time.
His
own reflection was gone. The black face with yellow eyes and pointed teeth
stretched on into eternity. It was laughing hysterically, roaring even, while
screaming the same thing over and over again, prayer or curse.
The
next morning he woke up dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment