When I looked in the mirror I saw a big man, a big man with a big hat on his head. He wears a pinstripe suit with goggles on his face and a large moustache. But this man is not me, rather he may be a burglar or I am just hallucinating. The wife calls me asking if I'm ready to go as we were scheduled that morning to go on a brisk walk around the town where we might see something more interesting than the same buildings that we've seen a thousand times before. At that moment though I was transfixed by what I saw, to other people am I this ridiculous? That's a shame, I was under the impression that I was hip and cool and other descriptors.

My wife walks up to check on me as I haven't been answering her calls from downstairs. She is quite cross with me as she thinks I am ignoring her when really I'm not, I’m just focused.

"Marvin, please answer me! What's wrong?" She says in my ear

I say nothing, only the inner voice speaks now

"Marvin, I'm begging you, have I done something?" At that point she looked in the mirror to try and get my attention, to try and look me in the eyes. What came back to her was a tall woman, clean, short hair, a nice green dress, a face full of expensive makeup and a look that suggested a virginity regained that she needed nothing more of. Both of us handsome in the face of the mirror, not being able to take our eyes off it, stuck for all day.

I think the people across the road have taken a dislike to our new obsession, they've always been nosy. I could always sense one of them peeping through a window at any time in the day when the blinds are up. They have this annoying tendency to just be overly curious. I know one of them only by name, Toby, but nothing other than that. They make strange purchases at the shops, I've seen Toby and who I presume is his wife down at Tesco buying all sorts of things. Dog and cat food despite not owning any pets, christmas cards for easter and easter cards for christmas, seen Toby buy pregnancy tests presumably for her even though he's told me before she's had her tubes tied, and I’ve actually also seen her buying baby food and other baby related supplies. Odd couple. It came as no surprise then when I could merely sense their eyes burrowing into the side of my head, like I said, always curious.

One of them must've called the police because they were "concerned" I suppose. Flashing blue lights were now outside of our home followed by the sound of our front door being assaulted by a very urgent policeman.

*bang bang bang bang* "Is everything ok in there?" Shouted the policeman

*bangbangbang* "Mr and Mrs Jones is everything alright?"

*bang bang* "If you do not reply we will have to force the door open, and that means breaking it just a bit. I don't want to do this Mr and Mrs Jones, as this is a nice looking door"

Me and the wife of course didn't answer, we were still transfixed by our own reflection and letting the images we saw course through our minds like rushing water. The policeman started to count down from ten as it appeared that there were now whole squadrons of police officers in military gear outside of our home accompanied by a quite unnecessarily loud helicopter. If I've seen the films right there's probably a few of them outside of our door with a battering ram. Unlike those films though, there's a police officer outside crying at this prospect. From ten until the final count of one, we remained stone-faced and focused on the mirror, and that's when a mighty crash was heard from downstairs. I heard the muffled sound of footsteps and military speak slowly rising upwards and increasing in volume. Finally they found us in our room and they stopped, frozen by the seeming peculiarity of our activity together. One of them, presumably the captain, slowly walked up to us and tried to nudge us but nudged us he did not. He tries talking directly in our ear, which of course doesn't work, which is when he tried my wife's tactic. He looked in the mirror and saw what he saw, I only saw a glimpse, a glimpse of madness in his eyes. The captain flies into a psychotic dance and starts screaming at us.

"Come with us now!!! You have to come with us!"

I never budged, not even as the captain took out what seemed to be a large hunting knife and slit open my wife's throat with it. As my wife's lifeless, blood covered body hit the floor the mirror cracked and burst outwards sending me and the captain backwards and covered in shards of glass. That was the last thing I remembered before my head hit the wall knocking me unconscious. The hospital bed I now lay in is fitted with machines to make sure I survive the treatment and recovery of this ordeal. When I woke up initially in the hospital I was surrounded by doctors, nurses and government officials. They all wanted to know if I was ok, to which I said "yeah a bit". After filling out some paperwork and answering some more questions they all filed out of my room to leave me be for the day.

I looked at the machinery that kept me alive and they cast reflections, and it was that same distinguished gentleman looking back at me...