Jagged
The man in the mirror
5:45am. Wednesday.
Alarm goes off but I’m already awake. Been awake for a couple of hours.
I’m someone who jumps up immediately and kills the alarm. Never knew how to snooze.
But not today. I’m tired.
Body doesn’t obey my commands. Have to beg it to move. Drag myself through the motions. Brush teeth. Coffee.
Seven minutes to drink it while looking at the kitchen wall.
Empty mug to sink, run the tap a little.
Bathroom. Stand over sink, splash my face with water. Don’t feel it.
I dry my face and look in the mirror. But I don’t see myself. I never do. Never had much interest in my own face.
Towel on hook, get the soap, lather up my hands, spread it over my stubble.
Rinse hands, grab the razor, Bic disposable, look up in the mirror again, place the razor on my right cheek, apply pressure. Cut myself.
Damn Bic razor. Blood in the cut.
And then I look into my eyes. And I see myself.
I see a man standing in front of me. A man I’ve become.
But I don’t like this man today. Haven’t liked him for a long while. He looks poorly. Tired. Black bags under his eyes. Gaunt. And eyes that seem to be begging me. Imploring?
“What?” I say to this man. “Fuck you.” I place my hands on the sides of the sink. Can’t look away though. “WHAT?!”
He keeps looking at me with that pathetic look.
“What do you want me to do?”
Silence.
I look down at the sink and see some drops of blood fanning out. Merging with the water droplets of the basin.
I clench my teeth, squeeze my eyes shut. So tight it hurts. Insane red and jagged patterns.
When I open them, he’s looking at me differently.
“Hey… fuck you”, he says. His tired eyes scan my face. Then they lock in. Contempt. Hatred almost.
“You’re going to die one day.” He says it smiling. Slightly.
“And that’s a fact. You’re gonna blink out. Go extinct. Rip current of the void.
Maybe a part of you heads off to another place. Maybe you’re reabsorbed back into life as energy. Or maybe it’s just one day you’re here, the next you’re not. Not in any form.
Blackness. The anti-light. The big nothing.
You can’t choose when this happens. It just happens. Might be tomorrow. Might be years from now. You might be dying right now, soap on your face with a stupid bleeding cut, just like an idiot.
What? Am I talking too dark for you? Nah, these are just facts and logistics. The way things work.
Everything you are will cease to exist.
You’re probably thinking about legacy and achievements that live on in time, aren’t you?
Maybe they do… but you don’t.
Or that your actions and words and art and music will live on…?
Maybe, but you won’t.
And everything you are, all your experiences and stories that built you, will vanish along with your body.
Your values, your hard-earned lessons, your beliefs, your dreams, your hopes… Gone.
No one will ever know about that time you got caught stealing that rock n’ roll magazine back in high school. No one will know about that old lady you helped every afternoon for a week by doing her chores because her children were away. Those stories will get buried with you.”
He looks at me sideways. Nods once, almost to himself.
“The only thing… the only real thing that’ll live on is others’ memories of you. How you made them feel. What they got from you.
And when you’ve fucked off, your loved ones will cry. You’ll leave a hole in them.
They’ll carry your legacy in the shape of their actions, in the memories of how you lived.
That’s the only part of you that survives. For a while, at least.
Until their chapter closes too and another opens. On and on. Eternal.
I know you’ve never believed you were special. But you’re not even that.
You’re nothing but a grain of sand. An incomprehensible nothing on the face of life. I know you want to mean more. You don’t. No one does.
Thing is, the only value you have is your power over your now.
That’s it. That’s the whole equation. Being in your now, actually in it, means you matter. You might help someone today. You might create something today that lasts through someone. But only if you’re there.
So let me ask you something…
Are you happy?
Not eventually. Not when things finally change. Now. Right now, are you good with who you are? With what you’ve become?
Are you content?
Because I’ll tell you something about me… you… well, whatever the fuck this is. You’ve never been satisfied. You always felt there was more you weren’t using. More you weren’t giving. Everyone’s been telling you this since you were shitting your diapers.
But you got lost somewhere along the way. A misinterpretation. Bad translation of what you were fed.
And you’ve ended up giving too much to what doesn’t matter.
Listen… you’ve built yourself a box. And you’re living in it, although the word living is debatable.
You’ve shrunk yourself as much as possible to make sure you fit, to keep yourself safe inside the makeshift planks and nails holding it all together. And your hands are full of splinters, hurting you bad, but still you rest them against the sides to ward off…Damn, I can’t even answer that for you.
This way, neatly tucked away, you can’t be seen, can’t be attacked, can’t be ridiculed anymore. You think you’re safe inside.
But just a minute…
Whoah… What in the…? It’s not a box you’ve built, is it?
It’s a coffin.
It’s actually nice. Well done. Fancy. Smooth lining for ultimate luxury living. I see some velvet there, nice detailing. Solid oak, of course, needs to be sturdy…
But wait. Looks kind of shabby from the outside. Ah, that was intentional, huh? No one’s going to bother opening up a shabby coffin to check who’s inside. Nothing valuable there, surely.”
He stares. I feel naked. Despised.
Hand to his temples, rubbing hard.
Then slams his fist on the sink.
“WHATTHEFUCKAREYOUDOING?
WHY ARE YOU WASTING OUR LIFE?
WHY ARE YOU FUCKING HIDING ALL THE TIME?”
He reaches out and punches the mirror. The thud and shatter ring out in the bathroom.
My eyes shut instinctively, I flinch, turn my head to the side.
Then I turn back. He’s there in a shard of broken mirror, propped against the tiles.
I pull my hand back and look at my bloody knuckles. The mess of what’s left of the mirror.
Jagged fragments all over the sink, on the floor. Red stains scattered about, running toward the drain.
I’m hyperventilating but I manage to fill my lungs.
“YOU DID THIS TO ME! YOU MADE ME LIKE THIS!”
The broken piece of mirror is standing crooked. My reflection looks back. Gaunt. Teary eyed. Sullen.
And there are more of him. Reflected in the pieces still on the wall. In the shards in the sink.
I’m gripping the sides of the sink tight. I loosen my grip. Adrenaline dissipating. Slight tremor in my head, my arms.
“You’re going to die.” I lean into the sink. “And you’ve spent most of your life living in fear.”
I crack my neck from side to side. I’m smiling.
“And you know what’s funnier than dying?
Getting a one-way ticket for the emergency room.
No need for a reservation, sir, just roll right in. Gurney right there under the fluorescent lights where we can see you. What do we have here? Fatigued, are we? Not been sleeping well, hmm. Frequent headaches, how frequent? Daily, oh. You hurt your joints here? And here, OK. Feeling a little sick, are we? Nauseous? Ah, you haven’t been eating well. What’s that you said, didn’t catch that? Oh, you don’t care. A bit moody but that’ll pass. Brain’s kind of dazed, I get it. Don’t seem very optimistic, do you? Haven’t been leaving your house much, sure, I understand. Not motivated to do anything? Oh, we get that a lot. No, no, don’t worry. We’ll fix you right up and have you back into the world in about three years. Like you were never gone.”
I look down. I’m pushing my bleeding fist into the side of the basin. It hurts. I look back at my reflection. Pleading.
“You have no future. You only have now.”
I pick up the shard, look at myself for a moment, then set it carefully on the edge of the basin, face up, reflecting the ceiling light.
I turn on the tap, rinse my hands.
Watch the red thin out and disappear. Pieces of mirror catch on the drain guard.
I cup my hands and hold the water there for a second before splashing it on my face. It’s cool. This time I can feel it.
Other Quiet Rebel essays:
My Psychologist before years has told me: "You have to wake up. You live inside a photograph with no actual life. Others make the decisions for you.". I remembered this phrase when i was reading this article.
Very good story, strong language it could be in a Hary Hole scene, so breathtaking it was.
“You have no future. You only have now.”
An intriguing paradox! At first, the sentence sounds odd (I have to re-read muktiple times).
Yet.. there is so much depth in it.. you cannot work, love nor grow in the future.. only now.. and ironically, a better future is shaped by what you do in the present
I guess the person in the mirror (and most of us in similar situation) may not need to fix the future.. what he needs is to un-mess the now..