On the wall

The mirror showed a reflection that was not my own. At least, it wasn't the face that matched who I feel like on the inside. I used to be someone else. I used to be conventionally pretty - skinny, no bags under my eyes, no extra chin. When I looked at the mirror, the older, overweight, tired woman was not the vibrant woman I thought I was.

I hated that face. I avoided reflective surfaces whenever I could, but my therapist told me to confront my image at least once a day and to try to accept the face staring back at me. It wasn't working so far, and I despised the woman who made her own beauty go away.

I despised my medications. I despised the intense dieting and exercise that seemed to do nothing. If I believed in a soul, I would have sold it to have my old body back. To see a face in the mirror that felt more in line with my perception of myself.

The problem was, each time I looked in the mirror, my perception of myself became as twisted as the feelings I felt when I saw my own face. I am not a superstitious person, and there's not much I actually believe in. Staring at the mirror every day was torture, and I remembered the game we played as children, "Bloody Mary." I turned off the bathroom light and chanted what we used to in the elementary school restrooms to summon Bloody Mary. Naturally, nothing happened, and I flipped the light back on.

It was just me, my face twisted in anger, angry at my circumstances, and my own vanity. I used to believe there was more to a person than their appearance. Apparently, I'd changed, and just wanted to be pretty again. I wanted to look at the mirror without hatred.

I proceeded to get wasted. I watched old horror movies and downed two bottles of pinot noir, and passed out on the floor next to my couch before I could get up and make it all the way to my bedroom. I woke up some hours later, my head pounding, my mouth dry, and wondering why I did that to myself sometimes. It was never fun, and it never felt good. At least I blacked out some of what was probably a miserable evening, so that seemed like a positive thing at the time.

I put the empty wine bottles in the recycling and went to the bathroom to ease my bladder, and then put some cold water on my face to help with the hangover. When I looked up at the mirror, I saw my past face looking back at me. I was startled, which was mimicked by my reflection. I saw a small crack in the corner of the mirror that I never noticed before, and on impulse touched it to see what it was. The small crack made a small cut on my hand, and it dripped a little blood. I cleaned it in the sink and put on a bandage, and went to sleep. I figured what I saw was the result of a night of heavy drinking and wishful thinking.

I awoke with a headache, checked my phone, and saw that I had plenty of time to try to feel human before I went to work. I started the coffee maker and took a shower, hoping for rejuvenation. I started to feel sick, which I attributed to my hangover, and finished my shower. As I was brushing my teeth, the steam on the mirror started to clear up. Once again, I saw my younger face staring back at me, brushing her teeth like I was. The crack in the mirror had grown, and I didn't understand how. I finished brushing my teeth, and stared at my reflection. I made gestures with my hands and made odd facial expressions, and the reflection did the same. I stopped for a moment, wondering why I was hallucinating. My reflection winked.

I was startled and stepped back, but my reflection did not. She picked up a piece of broken glass from I don't know where, and started carving away the skin around her chin. The same skin I hated on myself in the present for being too large.

I watched in terror as the flesh fell from her face, and then she moved the glass up to her eyes. As she started to cut the flesh under her eyes, I begged her to stop out loud. She simply smiled, and started to cut what would have been the bags under my eyes from her own face.

I ran out of the bathroom, terrified. I felt my face carefully, and sighed in relief as there was no blood, and there were no cuts. I got dressed and ready for work, poured my coffee, and got out of my apartment and into my car as quickly as I could.

I avoided looking at anything that would be a reflection, aside from the necessary mirrors it took to drive safely. I dared not to check which face was staring back at me. I made it to work, faked a smile, and logged into my computer.

It was a normal day, pulling reports, analyzing data, and meeting with clients. By the time my lunch break rolled around, I almost forgot about my morning. I realized I hadn't packed a lunch, so I went out to a nearby sushi restaurant to get my usual.

It was never particularly crowded during that time of day, so I sat by myself in a booth and waited for my order after the waiter took it to the kitchen. Another woman, sitting at a table across the restaurant, walked over to my booth and sat down across from me. She looked concerned.

"Um...hello," I said. I wanted to be polite, as being polite to everyone was something drilled into me during my upbringing. The woman looked at my purse, and saw an omomori hanging from the straps.

"So you're Japanese," she said. It wasn't a question, but I confirmed her sentence and removed the omomori from my purse and handed it to her. She shook her head.

"An omomori is a charm with a prayer inside that you can carry with you," she said, still refusing to take the charm, "I'm afraid this won't help you."

Somehow, she seemed to know about...whatever was happening with myself and my mirror. I attached the charm back onto my purse, and asked her why not. She took a deep breath, and sighed.

"The charm you have is to ward off bad luck. What you're dealing with is something else, something you created. I'm sorry to bother you when you're alone, but I could see something dark clinging to you," she explained. I urged her to go on.

"Whatever is clinging to you is full of hatred. It is twisted, and will infect your life until you succumb to it's desires," she warned. I took a deep, nervous breath.

"How can I stop it?" I asked. She smiled at me pitifully.

"I'm afraid I don't know. I'm sensitive to this sort of thing because of my roots, but I'm an accountant and have no idea how to get rid of your...problem," she said. My face must have changed expression to a dour one, since she looked at me and spoke again.

"I can tell that it is an angry, vengeful spirit. I can tell that it was born inside of you. I can see it clinging to you, and somehow it smells like eucalyptus," she said. I took in a shocked breath.

"I used to wear eucalyptus lotion in college," I said. She nodded slowly, and remained silent as the waiter brought my food to the table and asked both of us if we needed anything. We both politely said we were fine, and she continued once he left.

"The spirit is connected to your past somehow, and it is part of you. And...I'm sorry if this is offensive, but I can tell that you, sitting across from me now, are not whole."

"How can I not be whole? Nothing has happened. I've just been living my life."

"You are split. There is a woman sitting in front of me, with a plate of sushi in front of her. Clinging to your back is an angry spirit who wants something. Like I said, I'm an accountant, so I don't know how to ask or tell what she wants. But I have a gut instinct that she is part of you somehow."

"Is there any way to ask someone you know, who practices in this sort of spirituality, that can help?" I asked. I noted a hint of desperation in my voice that I didn't intend. She shook her head.

"Sadly, anyone who was still practicing in my family has passed. I have the sensitivity to see and recognize these things, but I am not trained in how to deal with them," she sighed, and clasped her hands together, "But I saw this angry spirit hanging onto you when you walked in, and I felt compelled to warn you. You'll need more than an omomori charm or some sage smudging to solve your problem. Unfortunately, I don't know what. But I had to warn you," she said. She smiled faintly and patted my hand.

"Please eat. Whatever it is, it isn't attacking you now, and you should eat before it is in a comfortable place," she said, "And...I've seen other people with these spirits clinging to them, and I didn't say anything. And I regret those times, so even though I can't help, I thought I should warn you. If anything, I hope it validates whatever you're experiencing." With that, she gave me a courteous bow and went back to her table.

I watched her as she rejoined her table, a table full of friends her age. They all spoke in English and seemed to be gossiping and laughing about things at work. I assumed they were work friends.

Despite my confusion and trepidation, I was still hungry, and figured if the only advice I got was to eat something, then I should. I ate my sushi and drank my tea, all the while wondering what the hell what going on, and what spirit was hanging on my back that no one else but that woman could see.

***

I finished up my work day, still avoiding reflective surfaces. No one seemed to be able to tell that something was wrong, and certainly no one spoke up about a spirit clinging to me. It was odd, because this time, instead of avoiding reflective surfaces because of my body image issues, it was fear that I would see this...younger version of myself mutilating our face.

I drove home, blaring my favorite music and having a nervous cigarette. I hid a pack in my glove box for emergencies, and this felt like one. I coughed and sputtered, but it felt like at least I was doing something different.

As I took out my keys to unlock my apartment door, I noticed that my hand was shaking. I used my other hand to steady it so I could unlock my door and get in. I got in, shut and locked the door, set down my purse, and looked around. Nothing in my apartment seemed out of the ordinary. It was the same as always.

"Who are you? What do you want?" I asked out loud, looking around my livingroom, hoping for an answer. No one spoke back. I sighed, took off my shoes, and sunk into my couch. As I lifted the remote, I saw that my reflection in the television screen was myself at my current age, but pointing towards the bathroom.

I immediately wanted to run out of my apartment, change my name, and fly out to New Zealand and start a new life. Part of me knew that wouldn't work, and all of me knew that I couldn't afford moving to another country, anyway. I always kept a baseball bat by my door, and I grabbed it. I held it with both hands and I walked into the bathroom. Terrified as I was, I went and stood in front of my mirror.

There she was. The younger me, with cuts and blood from the wounds she inflicted this morning, looking disappointed at the baseball bat. She shook her head. I had no idea what that meant. I asked out loud, "What do you want?"

She just smiled, and picked up the shard of broken glass she used in the morning. She stepped back so that I could see more of her, and she started to cut around my abdomen, where my present self had extra weight hanging on.

I'd had enough. I screamed and used the baseball bat to hit the mirror. It cracked. I hit it harder, it shattered. I kept wailing on the mirror until most of the glass was littered all over my bathroom sink and floor. Panting, I lowered the bat, and carefully made my way out of the bathroom so that I didn't cut myself on the glass.

I thanked any celestial or cosmic entity that was listening that I lived in a big city, because I then grabbed my phone and ordered alcohol. Twenty minutes later, I had a bottle of bourbon in my hand and I swigged straight from the bottle like there was no tomorrow. I knew that there was no way I'd be able to sleep that night, unless I was blackout drunk. I wished, while I was still sober, that I had a prescription for Ambien.

I don't know when I passed out, but somehow I'd made it to my bed this time, and saw from my phone that it was only two in the morning. I groaned. For those of you that don't know, getting drunk doesn't necessarily help you sleep. Sometimes, once your body is done processing enough of the poison you just drank, you wake up.

This was one of those times. I was shivering. I didn't drink enough to suffer DTs, so I was scared. I stayed as still as possible in my bed, hoping that whatever entity was messing with me wouldn't notice that I was awake.

I shut my eyes hard, hoping that I'd either fall asleep, or be able to fake it until morning so that any malevolent spirit hanging around wouldn't be able to scare me. After a few seconds, I felt a sharp, searing pain on my chin.

I opened my eyes and started screaming. My younger self was holding a shard of broken class, and was carving away at my face. I tried to push her away, but my hands went straight through her. I begged her to stop, and kept screaming, hoping that someone would hear me and call the police.

She simply grinned, and kept cutting away at my face. I tried to get out of my bed, but I was paralyzed. For what felt like an eternity, she used the shard of broken glass to cut into my flesh and get rid of every single supposed flaw I'd complained about. Eventually I stopped screaming, because something seemed to be holding my neck so that I could barely breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. And there was the younger, prettier me, carving away at me with a smile and making no noise.

At that point, I hoped for death. Surely, I would eventually lose enough blood and die. As she stabbed the glass shard into one of my thighs, I passed out.

***

When I came to, I wasn't in my bed. Somehow, I woke up standing in my bathroom. My mirror was perfectly intact. Hesitantly, I looked at my reflection. It was the younger me, slim, mainstream pretty. This time, the reflection did everything I did, and did not have a sadistic smile or do anything different.

I looked down at myself to check my wounds. There were none. Instead, I was wearing the clothes I used to wear in college. I even checked my hair, and it was the same long length I kept it during my twenties. I looked at my hands. They were less creased. I looked at my arms, and there were no scars or blood to evidence what I went through the night before. Instead, they were slim and slightly muscular...the same way they were when I was in college.

In complete disbelief, I took a deep breath and went to walk out of the bathroom. I couldn't. The door was gone. It was just a wall. I panicked and looked for the window above my shower, and that too was gone.

I didn't make a habit of carrying my phone with me into the bathroom, so there was no way I could call anyone. I started pounding on the walls and screaming for help. It took a few minutes, but I eventually realized that when I pounded on the wall, it made no noise.

I walked back to the mirror, hoping that the clinging spirit would be there and that I could somehow figure out how to get out of the bathroom and back to my life. By the time I did, though, the mirror looked different. As if someone repaired it.

That seemed like a logical impossibility to me, since I had just smashed the mirror with my bat only hours before. Then, I noticed that through the mirror, my bathroom looked different. The décor changed. The towels were a different color, and the shower curtain was definitely not mine. Horrified, I watched as a complete stranger walked in front of the mirror and started brushing her teeth.

I started to cry. Something weird, something temporal happened and while I was in my younger body, I was somehow stuck in the mirror. I pounded on the glass, tears streaming, asking the woman for help. She didn't notice any of this. I finally shrieked, picked up my ceramic soap dish, and started beating it onto the mirror to break the glass.

The woman screamed for someone to come to the bathroom. It was her significant other or her roommate, and they looked in horror as the woman pointed at me through the mirror. I could hear what she was saying.

"Please tell me you see that woman. She's all bloody, and her face and body are all cut up. Please, please tell me you see this," she pleaded. Silently and numbly, the other person nodded and comforted the woman.

It's been years now that I've been trapped in this bathroom. Time moves differently on the other side of the mirror, and it distresses me, so I avoid looking at it whenever I can. Sometimes, out of curiosity, I look out to see who is living in my old apartment. Every once in a while, the resident looks at their reflection, unhappy with what they see. So I take a shard of broken glass and cut my finger, and write on the mirror, "Hating yourself will make it worse. Help me, please."

While no one has ever helped me, they at least stop grimacing at their reflection after a while. It seems that as time passes, they forget about my bloody messages, but they face themselves in the mirror and don't look at themselves with the same hatred I used to.

Meanwhile, to pass the time, I pick up a shard of broken glass, and start carving away pieces of myself to see if I can still bleed. I can. But I'm always better in the morning.