Hall of Mirrors

I wandered into the hallway, with the sole objective of killing some time. Mirrors after mirrors lined the hallway, every curve and every corner, some depicting the images as a hilarious distorted concoction, while others gave a tinted representation of what stood in front of them.

It was hardly amusing, but still fascinating in its own little way, the kind of fascination that one gets when one senses a surreal sense of deja vu, but yet cannot really put one's finger on. Perhaps, it was the disparity between images in the mind and the images read through the eyes, somewhat the same, yet still very much different.

I skirted across mirror after mirror, some stretching my body to unreal proportions, while others made me look less material than I actually was. I turned the corner and realised that I had come to a dead end in the labyrinth of reflections. But queerly, sitting all by itself, was a huge black mirror at the dead end.

Looking at my watch, I realised that I still had some time to kill, thus I decided to go the distance and ease my needless wonder about the lonesome mirror. Standing in front of it, I saw an unadulterated image of myself, save for a slightly black tint to my complexion.

Seeing that some strands of hair was out of place, I raised my hand to make the proper adjustments, staring deeply into the black-tinted mirror as I tried to focus my coordination through the effects of lateral inversion. As I stared deeply into the eyes of my reflection, something queer began to happen, my image in the mirror started to dilute, as the tint on my reflection became increasingly blacker and blacker, until it was a completely opaque silhouette.

Mysteriously, the silhouette turned around and started walking on its own, deeper and deeper into the mirror, while I was rooted to the ground, struck with an equal sense of shocking fear and fascinating awe. For better or for worse, the awe got the better of me, and I pressed my face closer and closer to face of the mirror, peering deeply within it...

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The Black Mirror

I saw the silhouette of some office furniture, of what seemed to be an office lounge, and I saw a group of silhouettes gathered around in a circle. One of the silhouettes, that of a tall and rather lean-built man, was talking, waving his arms with gestures, but I was too far to hear what any of them were saying. It seemed to be some sort of heated debate, as different people took their turns to speak.

Eventually, the tall silhouette got out of his seat and walked away, while the rest of the silhouettes started to disperse one by one, walking away with their heads hung low. But one silhouette remained, after all the others had left, deeply sunken into his seat and staring at the floor, as if in deep contemplation.

The image started to draw further and further away from me, till it became nothing but a speck in the distance, the image through the mirror started to blur with a black-tinted fog, obscuring my view....

Moments later, the fog started to clear, as I started to make out the lone silhouette of a man sitting at a round table. In his hand, he held what seemed like a cellphone, and was utterly engrossed in some form of conversation. In his hand, was a pen, and he seemed to be noting down something as he spoke on the phone.

He gestured with his hands as he spoke, and after what seemed like a long time, the silhouette finally put the phone on the table, looked down at what he had written, looked up and gave a huge sigh, and buried his head in his hands. The scene stilled at that point in time, as the same thing happened again, a black fog engulfing the entire image....

Once again, the fog cleared, and this time, when it did, I saw the lone figure of a man again, sitting in front of what seemed to be a computer, with his back towards me. Oddly enough, I could see the contents of what was on the screen he was staring at, but it was partially obstructed by his silhouette.

The only details that I could make out were the time on the lower right of the screen, showing 4:01 a.m. and the date, which was the "25th April 2008". On the top right of the screen, I could see what seemed to be the heading for an Internet Browser, and the only word that I could see was "Jobs."

The silhouette remained utterly motionless, with only his right-moving sliding what seemed like a mouse over the top of the table in one smooth motion, followed by a clicking sound, over and over and over again. Initially, I thought that it some sort of image on a mystical "Repeat," but suddenly, I realised that there was a change with each movement and each click.

The date at the lower-right corner of the screen changed after the sound of each click, initially, it was the "25th April 2008," but the dates cycled forward with each click, oddly, I only managed to catch some dates in April, August, November and December, as I saw the silhouette repeat the same process over and over and over again.

As the date reached the "31st December 2008" the moving and the clicking stopped, as the image started to blur out, leaving nothing but the black fog once again. Except, this time, when it cleared, there was no other image other than the black-tinted reflection of myself once again.

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I stared deeply into the Black Mirror for a little longer, hoping that something mystical would happen again, but nothing did. So I decided to turn around and retrace my steps. I made my way back to the entrance, and headed for the other direction instead.

Coming to a little Y-junction in the mirrored labyrinth, I chose the left path out of instinct, and followed the path down to another dead end. But this time, the mirror sitting at the end of the passageway was a small and round mirror with corners of gold.

Sensing something equally mystical, I approached the mirror and stared into my gold-tinted reflection...

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The Golden Mirror

The image within the mirror started to dilute as with before, but this time, instead of my image darkening, a light emanated from the image, growing brighter and brighter by the second, until my eyes could now bear the intensity of the light, and I had to shut them.

I tried opening them, and slowly, my eyes grew more and more accustomed to the intense brightness, as I started to make out white silhouettes not too far away, but never able to fully open my eyes to get a clearer picture.

Thankfully, this time round, I could hear something coming from the other side of the mirror as well, and the most prominent thing that I heard was laughter, a chorus of laughter from emitting from the silhouettes.

But as my ears got gradually sharper, I managed to listen through the piercing laughter, starting to be able to pick up the sounds of what seemed like the sound of cars, yes, an insane number of cars, hustling and bustling through the streets. I could make visually make out the silhouettes walking down what seemed like a crowded street, with one lagging behind, as the rest of the silhouettes moved forward, the one right at the back turned around, and looked around him, in awe and wonder, rooted in his tracks.

The sounds of the cars faded away, as the rest of the images faded away too, save for the lone figure that stood rooted to the ground. He was still looking up, in the silence. The silence broke slowly, as the sound of water started to fade in; not just water in fact, but the sounds of waves and a boat. The image was on the boat looking up, at what seemed to be a large statue in a distance.

The sound of the waves grew increasingly louder, as the waves started to move faster and faster, carrying the boat further and further away from the statue, as the sound of water grew increasingly louder, to the point of thunderous. The image was now of the silhouette on a boat, in surrounded by walls of water all around, as it retained the same awestruck pose.

The sound of the waters gradually died down, with the image of everything else except the silhouette blurring out. The sound of the waters came to a soothing calm, as I started to recognize it; it was the sound of the sea, the calming sound of the crashing waves, as I saw the image standing at the shore of what seemed like a beautiful sea, seemingly with his mind adrift out in the deep blue, that separated me and him.

The sounds of the water grew fainter and fainter, as the light around the silhouette dimmed gradually with the sounds, as the white silhouette staring out into the ocean started to look more and more like me. Finally, all that was left standing staring, was nothing more than a gold-tinted reflection of myself...

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Flicking my wrist to look at my watch, I realized that it was almost time, and I had better start looking for the exit. I retraced my steps to the Y-junction and headed the other direction, not long after which I saw a sign hanging overhead with the words "Exit."

As I made a turn to the T-junction, I saw the exit before me. But out of curiosity, I turned behind to see what was on the other side of the T-junction, and not to my surprise, was another lone standing mirror.

"Might as well check this out as well, since I'm already here," I told myself as I made my way to the mirror at the end.

As I approached it, I noticed that this mirror didn't have a tint like the rest, but rather, it was one of those funny mirrors that was angled and gave you two reflections instead of one, as I saw two images of me, side by side.

I stood straight and stared right through the middle of the images, but nothing seemed to happen. Confused, I started to turn to different angles but still nothing. I then started to move my arms, raising and lowering them, as I raised my hands to a 45 degree angle, my dual-images looked like they were linked by the hands, almost as if they were holding hands, and queerly, in this position, the image reflections started to blur...

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The Dual Mirror

The reflections blurred into a pinkish-red silhouette, resembling that of Gemini, with one that looked like it was a male, and the other a female, joint at the hands. The silhouettes turned around, and started walking away from me hand in hand.

They drew further and further away from me, and then suddenly came to a stop at a tall glass window, standing still in their tracks, and looked out over a city skyline. They looked at each other briefly, and then continued looking out at the skyline, in the midst of a ringing silence. There seemed to be a air of sorrow between them, as they continued to look on...

The city skyline started to blur while the silhouette of the couple remained steadily opaque. They turned around to face me, as the scene behind them started to form. It was only after a while that I realised that they were actually lying on a bed, staring up at the me. They turned to each other and they smiled, getting lost in each others' eyes.

But it was not merely the smile of happiness, it was also one of accomplishment and pride. For the male silhouette, there was a slight sigh of relief as he broke out into the smile, and for the female silhouette, there was a sense of bliss in her smile; as they lay there motionless, smiling.

Their heads started to nod, as if they were falling asleep, but ironically, it was my vision of them that was blurring, as I found it increasingly difficult to follow the hypnotic nodding of their heads...

Moments later, a light could be seen through the blur, as the light's strength grew, the fog started to clear and I could see a clear silhouettes of the couple, still joined at the hands, but sitting across each other on what seemed to be a dinner table.

In between them was a cake, and on the cake was the candle. The female silhouette reached over to put her mouth near the candle, and shortly after, blew the candle. Strangely, with the blowing of the candle, the candle-light's illumination radius and intensity started to increase, growing brighter and bigger, until it became so blinding that I was momentarily flash-blinded.

As my retinas started to recover their abilities of depiction, all that was left standing in front of me was nothing more than that of the dual-images of myself.

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The Exit

I looked at my watch, and I realized that I had spent longer than I had planned staring at the last mirror, so decided to make a mad rush for The Exit, lest I miss the fireworks. I pushed the handle of the door leading to The Exit with all my might, tripping over myself as I got out of the labyrinth... or so I thought.

As I looked up, right before me, were the grey walls of a concrete passage and a glass door at the end. I looked at my watch and realized I had about 2 minutes. I walked briskly up to the glass door, and saw the figure of someone walking towards it from the other side, in the partial darkness.

As I drew closer and closer to the glass door, I started to recognize the figure...

On the other side of the glass. it was a reflection of me.

"Is this another one of those mirrors?" I thought to myself.

I brought my face closer to the mirror, and stared deep into the reflection, but nothing happened. I turned and I turned, and I flayed my arms up and down, and still nothing happened.

After trying a number of options, I gave up and just stood there staring at the image. I looked deep into its eyes, and I noticed something... there was something different about this particular reflection.

Somehow, there seemed to be something very different in its eyes, something that I haven't seen in a very long time, through the crystalline-patterns of the grey-coloured lens. Behind those eyes, there seemed to be a strong sense of confidence, an almost-blind confidence; one that compliments a rather non-chalant, everything-thing-will-turn-out-fine sense of self-assurance - something that I haven't seen in my very own eyes for a long time, for almost the better half of the year in fact; something that I miss deep within myself.

As I stood there standing, staring at my image, all of a suddenly, my hand moved to my hair, to adjust the angles of the spikes of my hair. I tried my very best to lower them, but no matter how much force I used, I had no control over them.

Shortly, after that, my hands moved down to pull my shirt into place, I looked at my image, and it looked right back at me, giving the look of arrogance, and a quick smirk to me; as I felt my facial muscles winding up into my trademark smirk as well, very much against my own control.

10.......9.......8......

The crowd outside was shouting, as my image turned his back towards me, and walked away from the glass.

...........7.........6.......

I saw him walking further and further away from me, disappearing into the darkness.

.........5.........

I started banging on the glass, banging with all my might, hoping to open it, or if I had to, break it.

.........4..........

I continued banging on the glass, thudding on it as hard as I could.

.........3.............

Suddenly, the thudding sound stopped. I looked at my hands and to my horror...

.........2............

I discovered that my hands had become immaterial, in fact, my entire body was starting to become nothing but a spectral image.

...........1.............

My entire material being had faded into an immaterial image, and I could also feel my consciousness slipping away from me... all the memories, all the laughter, the tears, the anger, and most of all, the deeply-entrenched sorrows - all escaping what was left of my being...

The last memory that left me was that of myself, confident and cocky, full of hope and optimism, with eyes full of dreams and a head full of hope - a representation of myself that I had merely become a shadow of in the last year....

I faded deeper and deeper into oblivion... as the last bits of my consciousness, with my last ounce of strength, I mustered enough power to be the final words...

............"Happy New Year".............