On the wall

Did you ever watch someone looking at themselves in a mirror?

Did you ever see someone apply make up to their face, while looking in a mirror near the washbasins in a public toilet?  Or see someone check for remnants of food in their teeth, in the rear-view mirror of a car.  Did you ever see someone adjust their hair, while they were looking at goods through a shop window?

Did they ever see you looking?

There’s a wave of light to catch when they hurry back to this world, and leave their reflected image behind.  There’s an essence of time between the moments, when they hope they didn’t seem too pre-occupied with themselves, and they might even try to make fun of it.  There’s a second of sound, where the breath of the person and the thoughts they have, are in unison with the light retracting.

At this time of year, things start to get spooky.

As children, we always loved the Hall of Mirrors in the Fun House at the Fair.  Our bodies were made to look too tall, fat, tiny or mysterious by the specular reflection.  We laughed at the nonsense of it all, and we knew this image didn’t really exist.  We only looked that way in the mirrors.  All the same, they did what good fair grounds are supposed to do; they frightened little children.

Even amoeba act differently when being observed in petri-dishes.

The first mirrors were invented 8000 years ago and were made with obsidian, which was grounded and polished until it reflected reality.  Until recently, only the wealthy owned mirrors, but all throughout time it was always seven years bad luck if you broke one.  Some people believe that mirrors can trap the dead souls, and recommend that you don’t look in a mirror at midnight.

This is the time of the year when things begin to get spooky.

Sometimes, when the moon is out and the sky is clear, I think about an antique compact, powder mirror I once found in dressing table, in an old house in England.  It was in the third drawer down and was elegant and sophisticated.  It was round, and made of silver, and perfectly engraved with a circular pattern that could go on forever.  When I opened it, I could smell the old powder and I thought of the woman who owned it.  She hoped through the mirror portal, and said hello to me, but she didn’t stay too long.  I felt her in the breeze brush past me, her necklace, cigarettes, and pearls.  I put the compact, powder mirror back in the drawer, and for all I know it could still be there now.

This is the time of year, when things all around you, can start to feel spooky.