The mirror in my house smells. Or perhaps that’s not the right word? I feel repulsed when I get too close, or when I accidentally touch it. It’s something about the air – is it stale? Writhing? Sometimes brushing by it gives me gooseflesh, sometimes the glass it’s made of doesn’t look real. I know that the image isn’t real of course, that’s not what I’m worried about, but it just doesn’t look right. Now that I’m putting it into words it’s actually a lot harder to explain than I expected.
It’s been kind of pissing me off a lot lately, actually. My life is perfectly simple. I have my job, I have my car, I have this wonderful house with a full front lawn and everything about it is great except for this mirror. I’ve got my life wrapped up in this perfect little bow and this one thing is tainting it.
Maybe I’m overreacting? It’s a mirror. I could throw it to the street and call it a yard sale if I want to. But if that thing becomes the first thing I see every time I come home I think it might destroy me. My house is painted a lovely light aquamarine, the roof is slate grey, and the sage green lawn is perfectly trimmed. It’s a perfect image. Having the mirror out there would poison it. At least it feels more contained when it’s in my house. Less exposed.
I’ve noticed that turning off the lights helps. Kind of counterintuitive, right? The dark should exacerbate my fear, or discomfort, or whatever it is – it’s just gross, that’s what it is, it’s disgust that I feel – but I actually feel much more comfortable in my room when there’s no light. I sleep just fine, it’s waking up to it that jolts me.
I’ve had this mirror for years, by the way. I bought it while thrifting back in college. Had it in my dorm room for two years, and I never got bothered by it then. More superstitious people say mirrors are bad luck, that ghosts or bad energies or whatnot get trapped inside, but even if I were to entertain that, the evidence shows that the mirror itself isn’t the problem. Okay, wait, the mirror is the problem, it’s very clear that the mirror is the problem here, but it wasn’t always like that. There’s no ghosts hiding in my goddamn mirror.
Why now? This is incredibly bad timing. I’ve finally reached this perch, this tiny fucking spot suspended over miles and miles of nothing where I can put all this shit to rest, where I can finally look down and up and to the side and be content with my position, and then this starts happening, this awful reflection begins blinding my view of the plot of land I’ve carved out for myself, something I clawed towards with my own two hands. It’s unacceptable.
Work was fine today. I clocked in, put on my business-friendly smile, exchanged pleasantries with who I had to exchange pleasantries with, and did a hard day’s work. There’s no discomfort or fear in my work. Everything is perfectly insulated, I know exactly what I have to do and what I have to be to succeed, and it’s perfectly formulaic. I admire that philosophy in a space.
It runs like clockwork. Just like the rest of my life has been designed like clockwork. Designed by me, of course. As I said, that’s the kind of philosophy I admire, so I built it up in my own life too. It’s all been in my hands.
Except that I can see the edge of my cheek from where I’m sitting in that goddamn mirror and it pisses me off. It pisses me off to no end because I don’t like how it looks, it looks hard and cracked and it doesn’t look like my real skin. God, that sounds ridiculous, I know, it’s obviously my real skin; it looks exactly like my real skin, actually. I’m not really sure where some of these words are coming from. Maybe I should just turn off the lights. Make it dark.
There’s a lot of empty space in here. It hasn’t really felt that way before, but looking at it now, I feel like I take up less space than usual. The house feels emptier.
It doesn’t really feel stable up here anymore, up on this perch. I’m not quite sure I was built for this. I’ve heard that no one was built for this, once. Years ago. Kind of a fleeting echo, now. But people aren’t built to fight in wars or go to space either, and that’s what helmets and spacesuits and shells are for. You kind of need one if you plan to get this high, high enough that a fall could destroy you. You need something to crack open on the sidewalk in your place.
The light aquamarine of the bricks complement the slate grey of the roof because the combination of blue and grey evokes an urban aesthetic while the light hues of each individual color keep the presentation cozy. It’s modern yet homey, sleek without the roughness. Especially with that sage on the front, you want to show the admirable symmetry in the length of each blade of grass while having its shade be enough of a balance of light and dark to not throw the house off balance.
Fuck, it’s all just word vomit, isn’t it?
I think I’m exhausted. I’m afraid of suffocating, I’m afraid of falling, and I’m afraid of doing neither for so long that I lose myself in the movement of a clockhand. I don’t think I know what to do. It’s all been so tightly wound.
Maybe I’ll keep the lights on, and maybe I’ll sit in front of the mirror. Not for long, just for a few minutes. Just watch my reflection for a bit. It’ll probably make me cry, but. Well. I don’t know. If I do that, maybe it won’t smell as bad.
Writer | Alexander Womack ’27 | awomack27@amherst.edu
Editor | Jude Tait ’28 | vtait28@amherst.edu
Artist | Ashley Kim ’28 | arkim28@amherst.edu