A 20-minute short story. (i.e., one that I wrote in 20 minutes)

Mirror

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 – 2:11-2:31 am

I looked in the mirror. Before this, I was puffy, large, clearly an enlarged man, an overweight man, an expanded man, an experiment in biological whimsy. Now, I was a normal man, one besieged gently by slight weight problems dangling off himself, just little taunting bits of flesh being vestigial and superfluous. You could see, underneath, a nice smile, a tight chin, and a fighter’s profile. To himself, he was different. With thirty pounds to account for the process.

I knew that I had a physical obsession with mirrors. That man in the reflection was unknown to me in a very real sense now, and being alone for seven hours staring at it, my final conclusion was that the mirror-man was staring at me for different reasons than I was staring at it. He was looking at himself with a challenging glance, a humorous snarl, a toothy affectation that wasn’t present on his own face. He could feel the difference. He was clearly frowning, according to his cheek muscles, and that bastard in front of him, oh yes, he was very clearly grinning. Wasn’t he? That lip was upturned in a way that couldn’t be belied. Asking for a hand to punch the glass.

Ever since that weight was lost, each morning became a longer glance. Six seconds would suffice at the fat self, a quick reminder that he was alive, not about to die this morning, teeth not too fuzzy. Zippers zipped. The glances got to a state of longer duration at five pounds. His eyeballs drifted, off his main eye-to-eye contact and down the frame, to points ignored for a good period of epochs. So many that if you were to subscribe to the belief that one’s presence of witnessing an object brought that object into existence, these places would long since have withered into legend and lore. I now saw those places again, dared to cross the straits and saw my profile and let it hang. And at ten pounds, I stared some more.

It wasn’t that he was falling in love with me. He’d stare like a good doctor, a family member, a friend. It was hard to explain. I knew after fifteen pounds that I was no longer going in to stare at him; he was going in to stare at me. That’s how he became different. And I was no longer his twin.

I wanted to continue enhancing this effect, by whatever means possible. I would starve myself for full days, water fasts in a darkened apartment. He wouldn’t answer the phone. He waited, hoping to see the figure in the mirror one last time before the end of the day, and he wanted it to be good and sweet, without mercy or forgiveness.

At thirty, at last, the process was complete. The skin hung loose and angry, and even the eyes were of a different color. He was dressed differently than me; his arms had different types of hairs. His nails, different proteins. His lips, curled.

His eyes were cold.

I didn’t return his gaze, even when he stared at me. This day, in the mirror, I didn’t look back.

What to say as a preamble? Days followed. He withdrew to his bed, and dreamt. I grew despondent and unplugged my phone, threw out my clothes, shattered my TV. I didn’t realize what he meant to me. He felt the same way. They couldn’t reconcile, however. So they didn’t even try to fake a hello. The rest of the weight loss was habit, please understand. The stay in the hospital was even therapeutic. After all, he came to visit. Would he have done otherwise if I hadn’t been so extreme in my behaviors? He came right up to me, looked me in the eyes once again, and there was a form of apology. We made silent differences, and I left him in the hospital bed, and I went home. He knew why I visited.

I don’t keep that window open. I don’t polish the glass. I don’t have mirrors in my house anymore. And we’re both fine with that.