The damp cold air smelled heavily of mildew as I approached the entrance of the cemetery. I slowly reached to push open the gate but stopped just as my hand made contact with the rusty iron. I shrieked in pain and surprise; the metal was burning hot. My friends encouraged me to keep going. It wasn't even completely dark out, they said. I took a deep breath and stood tall with feigned confidence. I knew it was bad to give into peer pressure but I didn't want to chicken out. Their dare to go into the cemetery alone wasn't even that difficult. As I looked over the gate and into the cemetery at the rows of gravestones surrounded by the early morning mist, I felt a sharp chill run through my body. I ignored it and pulled my sleeve up over my hand and pushed the gate open. It creaked loudly and a black cloud of ravens startled and flew off from the sudden noise. My friends cheered and I tip-toed slowly deeper into the depths of the cemetery. I was just about the call it and turn back when I heard a low moaning sound coming from directly behind me. I froze and a clammy feeling came over me. The moaning got louder and louder but I still couldn't move. A second passed. I held my breath. Suddenly, something brushed up against my shoulder. With tears in my eyes, I glanced down to see a bony skeleton hand. I let out a scream of horror.
I didn't notice anything odd at first. I'd joined the tour late and was paying more attention to the guide's lecture than the actual paintings. I'd seen them all before many times. I was a frequent visiter to this gallery. It was my Saturday tradition of sorts--morning in the park and afternoon at the gallery.
This Saturday it was pouring and I'd forgone the park and headed across the street to the gallery earlier than usual. When I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see the group and attempted to slip into the tour without being noticed.
I failed.
Before I'd even managed to completely enter the room they were in, every single head turned towards me. That is, everyone except the guide, who continued on lecturing unaware the audience had grown by one. The tour members didn't pull their gaze from me for a few long seconds and I shifted on my feet self-consciously, afraid that I had interrupted a private tour and was unwelcome. I slowed my footsteps but joined none the less. Learning more about my favorite paintings was too tempting to pass up. They soon turned their attention back to the guide and seemed to forget about me.
30 minutes passed before something peculiar caught my eye--a signature that shouldn't be there. I'd sketched this painting only last weekend and I was sure that it did not have a signature then. After the guide finished his spiel about this particular painting and moved on to the next, I stayed behind and I stepped forward to get a closer look. Just as I was leaning down, someone spoke and I was interrupted.
"Don't get too close."
I looked up confused. I wasn't the only straggler. One of other tour members was standing not far behind me with a knowing smile on his face.
"It's one of my favorites too." He explained and shifted his eyes over to examine the painting suddenly in deep thought.
"It's the details, yes. I got too close one time and the security guard was not pleased." The man added and glanced back up at me.
"Oh. Thanks for letting me know. I--"
"We better catch up. The tour's moving on. Don't want to miss anything." He smiled and motioned to the adjoining room where the rest had gathered. Momentarily distracted, I turned and walked with the man to rejoin the group. Before I got too far away, I glanced back at the painting and reminded myself to inspect it later.
As the guide continued, I shifted my focus to the paintings. Odd. In several of the paintings, tiny details where either added or changed. The additions and changes were so minute that only an expert or someone as familiar with them as I would have been able to pick them up. I peered up at the others in the group to see if they had caught eye of this. They hadn't. It seemed. But they were listening to the guide with a newfound attentiveness that had been absent up until now. Just as I went to glance back at the addition of a small seagull to a self-portrait, I noticed that the man from earlier was watching me.
Peeking through his amiable indifferent mask was an unexpected weariness. Something was not right. In warning, my heart started to pick up and my skin became cold and clammy. I nervously wiped my palms on my jeans and averted my eyes from the painting. I was about to tiptoe away to take refuge in the restroom when a firm hand stopped me. I froze, startled, my eyes flashed helplessly to my wrist which was enclosed in a stranger's grasp.
His eyes were hard and his tone even.
"Want to know how we pulled off the heist?"
I sucked in a sharp breath of air.
I use to look at my reflection in the mirror. Perhaps more often than I would like to admit.
As a child I was fascinated with the wall of mirrors in my mother's bathroom. I noticed that if you looked at the long pieces of glassy silver at just the right angle they would create an optical illusion. Somehow there wouldn't be one reflection of me but a long line of them and I'd smile and wave happily at all reflections of myself. A seemingly endless line. Forever trailing off into the depthless distance.
As I grew older, the mirror lost the magical quality it held when I was a child. It became a practical inanimate object.
I'd glance into its flatness before I left for the day.
On good days, I'd be pleased with what I saw. On bad days, I'd avert my eyes quickly in distaste or shame.
Sometimes, I'd glimpse up at it to pass the time with my reflection while I brushed my teeth.
Use it to fake a smile at myself to try and feel better.
Since the summer it's become hard to look in the mirror these days. When I look myself in the eyes I see a confused stranger trapped within the mirror's unchanging walls.
Who am I?
Summer has turned to fall. The humid heat has shifted to crisp autumnal air. At night the smell of fireplaces burning envelops the street. Pumpkins greet cheerfully around every corner. Leaves sway alight with color before they flutter down to the ground. Everything has changed around me yet I still feel like I'm caught--unable to move on from the events of the summer and given up on with wishing for things to be normal again.
The rain came and everything was washed clean, refreshed. Water collected together into dark pools. I walked carefully to avoid soaking my shoes in the pools of water. Weaving through crowds of people and skirting the edges of the fleeting miniature seas.
Suddenly my eye caught the reflection in one of the pools. It was a window away from this world. The puddle's surface delicately reflected the still green leaves of a tree, the clear blue sky, and the side of a stone building. It was my world. Just different. Better. Somehow made otherworldly in the water where it was turned upside down.
I stepped closer to the puddle, taking in its mirage. I thought about trying to see my reflection in the water and approached the edge. Not close enough. I didn't see myself. The reflection in the puddle never changed. I admired the beauty of tree's leaves and the sky.
It was a reprieve from reality. An escape.
