And What Alice Found There

[butterflydreaming]

     Something squished underfoot as I stepped off the bus. I hobbled out of the way of sidewalk traffic and lifted my boot. Stuck to the heel was a partially smashed White Rabbit brand candy; the wrapper was slipping off of the pale, taffy-like cylinder. The rice paper inner wrapper fluttered like cellophane as the bus whiffled and and burbled up the street. I leaned against a brick building and took a few moments to rub the heel against the toe of the other boot.

I looked at my watch; it was a few minutes past nine, which meant that I was late for work. I was about to check my hair in the window reflection, something I do every day before trotting down to the crosswalk at the corner, but someone called out to me and I turned toward him. "Having a good day?" asked the stranger. A long mustache gave his face the look of a walrus. I checked the cloud filled sky, beginning to consider my answer, then decided not to decide.

"Yes," I said in a friendly way. I smiled and walked to the corner, and the green light, before he could catch my politeness with more conversation. He called something else as I travelled downhill toward the building where I work. I didn't pay attention to what he was saying. Something about staying in bed and January having an R in it. Or maybe about getting me in bed, but that wasn't a pretty speculation.

It wasn't until I reached the door at the top of the steps that I found that I had forgotten my keys at home. This wasn't a problem until I went back down the stairs, walked around to the main entrance of the building, went up the elevator, arrived at the office door, and saw that the lights were still off. I tried the door, and as I expected, it was locked. Peering through the glass confirmed that no one was in the office at all. Someone was always in at 8.

For some reason, the glass cast back a watery reflection of the painting on the wall behind me, but because of the angle or the dim light, I couldn't see myself. I smoothed my skirt. I straightened my shirt. I fussed with my hair.

Well...

Coffee break?

I could find a net cafe, check the office email from the internet and see if there was a message. I could go home and get my keys. I could get a better cup of java at someplace nearby, then come back in an hour. Surely, someone with keys would have gotten to the office by 10.

The overcast sky, broken in places that let in a sharp sunlight, had the strange effect of changing the windows of all the buildings from mirror surfaces into plain glass. Not entirely plain, however -- I couldn't see clearly through them, and passing cars and such cast a reflection, but I did not. It was... something of a relief. I can't help looking; I have to look. I practice a casual glance. I wonder if my clothes are flattering, or if I look fat. I wonder if I should have worn lipstick. I admire the fall of a wisp of hair.

I have never really recognized myself in a mirror or in a photograph. I look at the person that is supposed to be me and wonder why she looks so different from the me that I have in my head. Certainly, in dreams I look different than what light and lenses, or glass, capture. At times, I have stared for long unwindings of an hour at what a mirror will show me, looking into my own eyes, studying my skin, my cheekbones, the way shadows fall on my face, sometimes for so long that I expect the woman to ask me to stop staring. I understand why cats act as if it is forbidden to look at their reflected selves.

I'm not sure what I expect to see. I believe I would know her if I saw her, though.

As I was walking, a jogger with a dog ran past, going the opposite direction, between me and a the darkly tinted window of a restaurant. The images of man and dog were both crisp doubles of their real world counterparts. I completely stopped walking. Cars, and a pair of cyclists, went by on the street behind me, and all of them were reflected. I alone was missing from the window's mirror.

I ambled slowly up the street, repeating the experiment several times and getting the same result. I was not invisible; I smiled at people that I passed and received a smile or look in return.

I am sitting now at the library, a short stop before I head home. No one ever did come in to the office, nor do I know why. I sat on the soft sofa of the warm bakery for many hours after using their phone to make a short phone call and getting the office's general voicemail. The mirror above the sink in the bakery's neat little bathroom told me clearly what all the shop windows had been saying; for me, there were no more looking glasses. I sat on the soft sofa, breathing in the warm air full of the buttery smells of good things, and wrote with a pen in a notebook.

That is the only reflection that I ever need, after all.

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