The Girl in the Mirror

Dead.

I am dead. 

The walls pass by unseen and the floor does not exist as I walk down the halls. The charade I put on has been dropped. No one is around to see me as I am. Empty. I turn the corner and continue my walk, more from habit than from thought. The lights overhead seem to hurt. The dark is what I want; a never-ending darkness that I can walk into and keep walking through. I don’t want life. Another corner and this time I walk up to a door, three paper snowflakes and a purple whiteboard stick to the fake wood. My key fits. I open the door, drop my armload of blankets, boots and sweaters and close the door.

I am walking down the halls again, but I don’t know why. There are paper snowflakes on the floor, as well as pieces of my decorations. I had spent hours on that. Someone must have come through the hall and torn it all down. I stop and stare at nothing, wondering why they would do that, but not caring to know the answer. The bathroom - that’s why I’m walking. It’s behind me. Oh. I shuffle until I’m faced the opposite direction and once again begin padding silently down the dim hallway. There’s the door. It’s dark inside. I don’t like the dark. I turn on the light and carefully, slowly, place my key and key chain on the little metal shelf above the sink. It’s so fascinating how it rolls to the very edge and then that tiny metal lip keeps it from falling into the sink.

I look up.

Her eyes are dead. They stare unseeingly from the face in the mirror. Her hair hangs limp and slightly tangled by her face. The make-up has gotten smeared from lying on the bed. Her mouth is slightly open, the lips chapped; but her eyes – I look for life in them, but they just gaze back at me, not blinking. I see the dark blackness of the pupils, the green-gray-blue of the irises and then the whites, tinged with pink. 

I hate the face in the mirror. There’s nothing beautiful in that face, no smile, no laugh, no life. I hate her.

I drop my eyes – I can’t look at her. The floor is covered with trash and the toilet is plugged. I pick up my key again and walk out, flicking the light-switch gently. The hall is still shadowy and littered. The big bathroom is down the stairs. Each step down is eternity. 

The big bathroom is stark and bare and I hate it too. Four shower stalls, dripping water, drift past. The floor is cold. The trash can in here is full too. The four sinks are just around the corner; but there is a huge long mirror there, watching for me. I don’t want to look; I don’t want to expose myself to its hateful words. I keep walking. I can’t stop. The mirror is there, passing slowly by, begging me to look. And I do. 

She’s there again – that ghost gliding beside me – her eyes portals to nothingness. I don’t recognize her, but she recognizes me. She hates me too. She wants me dead so I can join her behind the mirror’s glass. I’m afraid. The mirror ends and I’m staring at a wall. I’m stupid. The toilet stalls are in front of me and I walk to the very end one. The fluorescent lights are gossiping again, pouring light into every flaw and pockmark of my body, of me. 

I have to return to the mirror to wash my hands. The eyes of the dead girl lock onto mine and destroy me. I can’t hold onto myself, but letting go releases a terror I didn’t know existed. I don’t want that. She can’t have me; but she will.

There’s a fly on the wall outside the bathroom. It’s crawling slowly across the white-painted bricks. I stop and stare for a long time and then slowly reach out my hand to squash it. It disappears into the air in a tiny gray streak. Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could disappear too and the girl in the mirror wouldn’t be able to get me. I stand there and look at the wall, seeing her, and hating myself. Then I turn, walk up the stairs and open my door.

A description of depression and depersonalization written in 2013