1 Mirror

One day a man encounters a mirror. Leaning against a rotting cedar wall, the mirror is four feet across and six feet tall. The wall is one of four in this small, wooden room. He walks in front of the mirror and notices something strange; his reflection is not following his every move. Instead, as he moves, the man realizes that the reflection takes place ten seconds into the future. The reflection ceases movement, and, in amazement, so does the man— ten seconds later. He stares wide eyed at the phenomena; however, the reflection is already moving again. The man attempts to move with it and realizes that he has done exactly as the mirror intended: he has moved ten seconds too slow. As this realization sets in, the reflection stops moving once more. The man, still not quite used to seeing a future version of himself, stops as well. Once again, he has bent to future's will.

Driven by curiosity, the man continues for hours on end with different movements. With each attempt to trick the mirror, he feels a sense of horror creeping up his spine. He finds himself repeating exactly what the reflection does each time. Each time he attempts to jump in a strange and awkward pattern, he remembers that just ten seconds earlier, the reflection did the exact same thing. Those ten, horror-filled seconds feel so long to him that it is hard to remember what he is not supposed to do. The reflection's motion comes to a halt as the cedar walls creak with the jumping man. He, too, stops after ten seconds. The two stare at each other: the same, yet different. One is flesh, one is glass.

Days pass as the man is driven slowly into a madness. His reflection has not moved, and neither has he. He is afraid. Afraid that if he shifts even slightly, he will realize that the mirror did the same thing ten excruciatingly long seconds before. So he stares. And he waits.

The man is dying. He has not seen food or water in three days and knows that if he moves to get any, the mirror wins. He is obsessed. Willing to die for a cause that matters to nobody but himself. Not even the mirror seems to care that life is slowly draining from his red, staring eyes.

The reflection moves. Slowly, its arm shifts down into its coat pocket. The man refuses to move, but suddenly feels a weight in his coat. He must figure out what it is. He reaches into the pocket with the same slow movement as his reflection. It is a gun. One that he forgot he carried with him to this place. It is a gun that he had pushed out of memory during the past three days of stillness to make room for questions about the mirror. The man's reflection grips the weapon and draws it out of his pocket in a weak attempt to lift it high. The man, intent on figuring out what the mirror is trying to tell him, lifts his weapon as well. The reflection places the muzzle of the gun against his right temple with shaky, dying fingers. The man does the same, wondering why his future self is tormenting him so. The mirror smiles as the man watches the gun go off silently through the glass. The reflection falls to the floor.

Ten seconds pass.