Mirror Man

By Sanibell BV on Unsplash

There was a man who lived in my mirror.

Let me be clear on this. It is not me. It is not some version of me that is in my mind. He is real, and he lives in my bathroom mirror.

I first noticed him about a year ago. I had moved out of my old residence into a the rental house due to the divorce. It had been an ugly time, and the new house was not what I wanted out of life. I was getting ready for work and was shaving. I had prepared a bowl of lather; I using shave soap and a simple safety razor. It’s a morning ritual that gives me a few minutes of self-care that help center me for my day and go through my morning affirmations that I needed to just get myself to go to the job. I had just finished whisking up the soap and was about to paint my face with the lather when I spotted him.

He was behind my reflection, peering in from the side of the mirror. When he saw me look, he ducked away. I turned and saw nothing. My heart was racing.

I wrote that off to a trick of the light, and I didn’t see the man for a while.

About six months later he appeared again as I was shaving. This time he crept in from the side and stood at the edge of the mirror behind me. He was a shadowy figure, slightly taller than me with mostly indiscernible features. I could see white eyes and the - I don’t know a better way to say this - a notion of a smile.

I dropped my razor into the sink and spun. He wasn’t there. When I turned back to the mirror he was gone. Still, I decided my mind was toying with me. Shadows can be deceptive if you allow them to be, after all.

Three weeks later he reappeared. This time, he slipped slowly towards me. I held my breath as he drew nearer. In the mirror, I saw him a couple of feet behind me. I turned, and as usual he was not there, nor was he in the mirror when I looked back. This time I started to panic. A scream stuck in my throat, and my heart pounded. I still wanted to believe this was a figment of nonsense generated by my brain. But I think I knew then that it was not.

But what was I to do?

He appeared again a month later, which was a week ago. This time my reflection was perfectly normal. I looked down at my lathering bowl, and when I looked up, there he was beside me. I still couldn’t make out his features, but I could detect the grin more distinctly. It was wider and somehow more malevolent. He placed his left arm around my shoulder, and I felt a spasm of cold shoot down my spine.