Work Text:
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the realest of them all...
My hand reaches out, grazing the cold piece of glass, making contact with another me. There are thousands of them, each getting smaller and smaller, extending farther than I can fathom. I stare and I wonder, running my hand through my hair as all the others copy my action. It is said the eyes are the window to the soul, but I cannot determine through how many windows I am looking. In this moment, I feel utterly insignificant. I don’t know whether I’m controlling or I’m being controlled. There is no way to know. No way to be certain. I again place my hand on the surface, feeling it push back, watching as all the other figures connect. I imagine a portal, a window. Being able to walk into the world beyond this brittle plate of heated sand. Being stopped by another me who is just as real as the one I am, only displaying my every move in reverse. Maybe it’s not this clear surface I feel but another reality. My conscious grasps at the possibility. I envision infinite parallel universes. Thinking of possible outcomes. Universes with everything, with nothing.
I lean forward, losing myself in thought, losing myself to infinity. Soon I’m falling into the depths of my mind, moving faster than words can form. Fear and excitement course through me for an instant, and as fast as they appear, they are gone. I’m moving so fast yet I stand perfectly still, staring intently at me, or not me. I go from parallel to perpendicular, imagining a solar system as an atom and an atom to contain worlds upon its electrons. None of it makes sense, and yet somehow it does. I feel almost outside myself, above, throughout, within.
I look away for a moment, in order to pull myself back. I close my eyes and feel air enter my lungs. For how long I was holding my breath, I am unsure. It may have been a single moment, it may have been many. In the darkness, my mind still wanders, now fixated on the concept of time. I think of fate and free will. Time’s beginning and time’s end. It’s linear progression, or if that is merely one perspective. The only perspective the limited mental capacities of humans can handle. Whether it can be bent, broken, altered. It’s relation to the formation of other alternative realities. Whether imagination can come to life in another world, or another time.
I open my eyes once more, letting it all sink in. In a single universe alone, I am aware of my own insignificance, but with infinite possibilities, that significance dwindles to next to nothing. And yet somehow I am something. We are all something. I am here. Now. I feel. I am. Where am I? I’m not always entirely certain. There is no way to ever be concretely confident in anything. Yet I can be confident in what I know. Or can I? I only know that I know what I know. But what we know is fluid, ever changing. Always different from the rest. Even shared experiences can be recalled in vastly different ways by every individual involved. Memories can be false. Facts can be fiction. Is it unreasonable that existence may not be as it appears?
I pull away from my thoughts, backpedaling before I’ve gone so deep as to not be aware of which way the surface is. Reality resurges, and I let it overwhelm me as my hand falls to my side. I laugh in spite of myself, realigning to normalcy. I feel completely fixed in the moment, my focus precise and in one realm. My gaze has drifted to my hands, and I use them to gather my things. I unlock my phone, peering at the clock. Only a few minutes have gone by. I could have sworn I had been standing there for longer.
Before I begin to wander again, I gently place earbuds in both my ears, closing my eyes once more and letting the music consume my being. It echoes through my body, resonating in my brain, anchoring me to everything that is real.
And then I walk out the door. And I am just me. The only me.