Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

Missing image
MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL1

In a small dank basement room beneath all the ruckus of the New York Institute of Technology the two men huddled, one with his hands covering and rubbing his face. Hair mussed. The other staring at him, pointing to a diagram he was holding.2

“I tell you it makes sense,” he said. “It’s got to work, because the numbers work. Why can’t we give it a try? What’s to lose?”3

The man who had been rubbing his face ran his fingers through his mousy hair.4

“What’s to lose is time, time and face. This is silly, Harold. You’ve spent too much time on this already. I’m telling you, I simply can’t do it. The administration won’t allow it.” He picked up the wax paper holding the remains of his lunch and folded it over his half eaten chicken salad sandwich, stuffing it back into the brown paper bag. “Now I’ve seen your idea, I’ve given you my opinion…”5

“But you are the administration, Isaiah. They’ll do whatever you say; whatever you recommend!” There was a moment’s pause. “Just get me the equipment then,” said Harold. “You won’t have to take part in the experiment. All I need now is another two mirrors and the recorders. Come on, Isaiah. It won’t be any trouble for you….None at all!”6

“It isn’t the mirrors or the electronics, Harold. It’s the support, your salary, keeping you on the faculty.”7

“What? What do mean, Isaiah? I have tenure here. They can't let me go!”8

Isaiah pulled his gleaming gold pocket watch from his vest and glowered at the time. “It’s getting late,” he said. “Really, Harold, we’ve discussed this before. I have a meeting. I have to go.”9

“I’ve given years to this university, Isaiah. It’s time for them to give back. I’m not asking for much. I won’t be treated like this. Please….” Harold held his hands out in entreaty. 10

“I’ll speak to you tomorrow, Harold, tomorrow.” Isaiah turned to exit the heavy door of the small basement hovel. It slammed behind him, leaving Harold to himself.11

He looked into the new mirror he had purchased for his experiments. His gaunt reflection stared back. The mirror was too new. It would do for part of the project but he would eventually need something larger…older. He lifted his gaze toward the sound system’s speakers; sensitive enough, but not an integral part of what he had in mind. Not yet. For now, it was the mirrors that concerned him. Harold sealed the cracks around the door and pulled the black shade over the little dusty basement window which led into nothing better lit than a subterranean closet. Then he doused the light. Blackness. Harold stood quietly for a moment, then tried to see his own hand. He could not.12

They wouldn’t believe him, but Harold knew that if one could achieve total darkness but still get the surface of a mirror to emit light…but never mind. They wouldn’t listen. No one had ever done it before. The secret lay in the use of two reflective surfaces, exactly positioned. They hadn’t used two mirrors. It was a reverberation principle. Each of the facing mirrors would reflect the image off the other, intensifying what little light there was; magnifying it! It would be old light. Trapped light! The key, Harold thought to himself, was that not all the light off old images was reflected. Some of the image’s light was seized, trapped in the mirror. The light, now, would be coming from within the mirror; from its depths. And there was no telling what that would reveal. Foolish people, thought Harold. They don’t understand. They cannot fathom the significance of my work.13

When Isaiah returned the next day there was a musty odor about the small room. And it was dark.14

“Harold? Are you here, Harold?”15

There was no answer.16

“Harold?” cried Isaiah. “It’s me. I brought you some coffee.”17

Isaiah detected a slight movement in the corner where light had trickled in from behind the open door. Harold bounded up, off his little stool.18

“Isaiah,” he said, in a chilling whisper, "you know String Theory: the tiniest particles…the building blocks of all matter…so-called strings? Nothing more than vibrations? Cannot be halved? Cannot be reduced? Nonsense, Isaiah! How can they reflect light if they are smaller than light particles? They are larger than light particles! Photons are the building blocks! It is light itself that we are created from. Light is the essence of it all. The Bible, Isaiah. The Bible! Let there be Light! This…is our very essence!”19

Isaiah removed the lids from the cardboard coffee containers and walked toward Harold. “You’ve been working hard, Harold. Have some of this. I can get us some lunch if you like.”20

“You don’t understand Isaiah. All those years I spent studying holograms. The same image over and over, whole, intact, no matter how many pieces it is broken into! The answer to it all is in the light. All of it need not be reflected. Some remains caught. Trapped in the mirrors. It is our essence, the essence of all things… and I can get it out! We can see it. Think of it Isaiah. Light from the ages! Images that would have been forever lost captured in the glass…but now, we can extract them! The dead can be resurrected!”21

Isaiah held the coffee out to Harold who did not seem to see him.22

“Isaiah, take a simple hologram and break it in two…in three pieces. What do you have? Three identical, intact holograms. Break each one of them, what do you have? More complete holograms. Replication! They cannot be divided. The light cannot be halved. A basic particle, an essential building block cannot be halved…cannot be reduced. And the particles of light that are trapped in these mirrors are whole…! Like holograms. And we shall see, we shall bring into being, the whole image!”23

“Harold,” said Isaiah, “take the coffee. Let me get you some lunch. You’ve been hard at it.”24

“No Isaiah. I want you to understand first. Like the sound waves and the images we send into space…they go on and on, Isaiah…for eternity!It’s conservation of energy. Bits of light that never die…are never lost! They remain in the glass…forever; until I will extract them! It starts with the light already in the glass…. It is reflected into the other mirror…and picked up, intensified by the first, and on and on, until we see it for what it is. The entire image! I won’t let them stop my work, Isaiah! I can’t let them!”25

“You don’t have to, Harold. I’ll help you. Listen to me,” Isaiah took out his gold watch. The mirror caught the image. “It’s getting late, let me go and get us something. I won’t be a few moments.”26

“No, Isaiah.” Harold lifted the heavy lamp by his side and struck Isaiah with its bronze base. Isaiah fell, the burning coffee airborne for an instant, then splashing down on his tweed jacket. “No Isaiah, you aren’t going anywhere anymore.”27

Harold dragged Isaiah’s limp corpse outside the basement room door that stood ajar and down to the cellar furnace. With no little difficulty he opened the furnace door and sat Isaiah on the edge. Then he pushed his body into the oven’s white hot flames. With a final twist of his shoe and leg, he shoved Isaiah into the blaze and shut the small cast iron hatch to the furnace.28

Back in his cellar hovel, Harold closed the door and knelt down to mop up the spilled coffee and the droplets of Isaiah’s blood. It was then, from his speakers he heard a sound. The reverberation units had been set up to detect sound from the mirrors…if that were to come to pass. At first indiscernible, the sound became clearer: “It’s getting late.”29

Harold looked up. It was then he saw the gleam in the mirror. The speakers sounded louder still. “It’s getting late!”30

The gleam in the mirror was suddenly more than light…it was Isaiah’s gold pocket watch! And the face behind it mouthed the words: “It’s getting late!”31

Harold stood. He confronted the long mirror. “No, you can’t,” he said…"you won’t stop me.” He lunged at the image in the glass with the base of his lamp which was still within his reach. The mirror shattered, fragments darting and lacerating, cutting, leaving shards of glass strewn all about the dark room. 32

Each piece of glass bore the full figure of a man holding a gold watch…until the light from the open door filtered in and vanquished it. The phrase on the speakers became an intolerable squawk as the images faded, bound for eternity…while Harold’s sliced and bleeding body lay amid the shards, thinking, “it’s getting late.... It's getting late."33

Author notes

This was a takeoff on some of the pulp "horror/sci-fi" I admit to having grown up on. Hope you enjoyed it!

A contest entry

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Comments

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  • The Insane Eraser silver member
    November 17
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    hmmm O.o...interesting opening...I wonder what they are conversing aboiut...and what is on the paper... I didn;t see any errors or grammar mistakes, so it looks good to me.

    GL and Warm Wishes
    Karbear.


  • CheshireCat
    November 12
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    Edit | Reply
    I have read this before. It was pretty good, but I wasn't really looking for maniac killers. Good read.


  • The Phantom
    November 9
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    Wow. Nicw work gary. I like it alot it is real.

    beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.


  • AzureFire Comet
    November 6
    Edit | Reply

    Creepy...

    Although some of it I didn't understand, this is terrifying. Good work as usual Gary.


  • Rawrr.
    October 25
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    Creepy, did the guy go mad?
    Good story, thankss for the great read.


  • Whipper Snapper silver member
    October 21

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    Wow, creepy. I loved it! I love this sort of thing. How they make something impossible into logic with theories and all that good stuff that make it sound believable!


  • CutsThatDontBleed
    October 19
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    wow great story!!!


  • Sin Nombre
    October 12

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    White rabbit? Kidding, at least it wasn't 'bloody Mary', good stuff, I'll never step through a mirror again. Death is watching...


  • seamus gold member
    October 12

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    Suspension of Disbelief

    This is a 3 card monte game. Love the way you dangle a fact and then snatch it back or move it aside so it can't be fully examined. Credible, believable and so well written it propels you into and through the story. 'nother good one.
    Ok, went back and added the clappies.
    Now for the payback. I would ask that you read one of my stories. If you don't "NO SOUP FOR YOU", I mean "NO CLAPPIES FOR YOU"


  • LilyFate
    October 9

    Edit | Reply

    Oh dear

    This story scared me almost to death o.o Its truly creepy. I was almost afraid to click on it cause i have a thing about mirrors... but good luck in the contest (:

    -LilyFate


  • LilMsHyper17
    October 3

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    Holy crap, I'm SO going to have a nightmare about this tonight. Thanks for scaring me silly. ;P

    HyperActiveFreak17


  • Smexi-gurl
    September 2
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    A little creepy but it was still really interesting.
    Good job!

    beginning: 4, plot: 4, ending: 3, characters: 4.

  • faithundefined
    August 11

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    Interested, I loved reading it, it's easy to see how hard you worked on this. There isn't much I can comment on other then to say Awesome job! Reminds me a little of the movie Mirrors with Keifer Southerland, great movie! The story went well with a dark room and a bowl of popcorn lol.

    Great job, keep writing
    Summer

    beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.

  • CheshireCat
    August 11

    Edit | Reply

    Very Nice!

    I have to say this is one of the best yet! At first I thought there wasn't going to be a ghost and the whole discription of the mirror experiment was very confusing. But I am just a teenager and the event sounded really genius! I felt like I was listening to some documentary! The motivation to Harold killing Isaiah was a little foggy, I would add some discription on why he would kill him. Also there was a part "little no difficulty" which is a grammar mistake, you might want to fix that. The insanity of an obsessed scientist really added a nice touch for Harold's character, but I think Isiah's character could use a little edge, I would be quite nervous if my friend was acting so crazy, even adding a little stutter to his words would help boost the characterization. Besides that, imaginitive, original, smart, and very good read!
    Good luck with the contest!


  • Lady Eventide Greeters member
    August 9

    Edit | Reply
    Oh! This is scary!

    I can imagine this, the crazy scientist who believes his theories, and then the man who's the saner of the two, with a cups of coffee and a charming personality. Poor, poor Isaiah. Harold's such an a-hole!

    In the last part, when the mirror shattered, I could so imagine that...almost as if I were there! With all the scientific talk, I was like, 'Oh, that's interesting.'

    You an incredible author. Thanks for entering this in my contest!!!


  • cole3313
    August 8
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    Wow that was a tad bit creepy. Great job, i really liked it.

  • emma...
    August 6
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    wow, i liked this a lot great write.


  • Iris Doyle
    July 28
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    whoa...
    i think ive read this before,
    but its still just as good
    great job!
    good luck in my contest!


  • Fantasy500
    July 25
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    i liked it, i agree with Bloodredprimrose


  • u.wish.u.were.emmet
    July 15
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    Once again I'm commenting, but its cause u entered my contest!! I will be honest and tell you that I didn't find the story very suspensful, but I've said that to a million people so...yeh I thought the story was exciting, it caught my attention, and...don't take this the wrong way but it was interesting to!=] Nicely done, and thx 4 entering my contest!!


  • Scarlet Akira
    July 15
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    Its cool. I like it. Looks like this is going to be another hard contest,


  • So Strange Greeters member
    July 14

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    Kind of crazy. I enjoyed this, but it was still kind of crazy. I thought the ending was really interesting... and even though I am a big fan of horror, I don't think this is a genre that works that well without truly horrifying aspects. I think you have a good chance at becoming a great horror writer. You just need to focus more on your stories and turn them into longer stories, if possible... if not, then maybe in chapters. This is a short story site, but I'm just saying.

    I hope you are lucky in the contest I am co-judging. I wish you all the luck in the world. With writers as talented as the ones you're against, it's hard to even get nominated, much less win gold.


  • BloodRedPrimrose
    July 13

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    Wow thats probably the best thing I've read today. It was a perfect balance between creepy, slight horror and suspense.

  • u.wish.u.were.emmet
    July 10

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    Very nice story=] It was a little creepy and i was a bit confused at some point but it was suspensful and interesting! Nicely done=]


  • Siby Anan
    July 2

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    That ending is chilling. You did a fantastic job leading up to it and you left the only characters you introduced dead. One, because of his own mad thoughts and the other because he didn't know how to handle a madman!

    Well done!


  • Weatherwax
    June 29

    Edit | Reply

    On Reflection...

    Mirrors. They're a great tool for the writer, standing on the line between science and fantasy as they do. It's always fun to watch writers give them a slight nudge in either direction, and see where it goes. And, in this case, it goes very nicely indeed.

    I won't go into accolade over your use of vocabulary - I think we've already established that it's always impeccable. Although... in paragraph 11, I'm not sure that 'hovel' is the best choice of word. Does Harold actually live there? I was under the impression that the word referred to a dwelling... or an open shed? Of course, you could be using it metaphorically, but I don't know, in that case, if it fits in with the rest of the writing, which is quite straightforward and scientific. Also, in paragraph 5, the third use of 'time' is a tad repetitive (I know that Isaiah has this thing with time, but perhaps 'too long' instead of 'too much time' would work equally well?)

    As far as story is concerned, I think this is the first one of yours I've actually read (as in a straightforward narrative, I mean), and, once again, I'm so glad I did so. There is real thought behind the plot, and despite the complicated scientific angle, it doesn't lose itself behind a mountain of gobbledegook. Basically, a brilliant idea.

    There was one line where I sort of lost the flow for a bit. In paragraph 18 - 'light trickled in from behind the open door'. This sounded a bit awkward to me... wouldn't light come in through the open door? Unless you mean that the light reached the corner through the gap where the door is hinged to the jamb, in which case I think it needs to be a little clearer... Could just be me though.

    Finally... I found that Harold's attack on Isaiah was a bit sudden (um... not the attack itself, but the way it was written). Perhaps you could flesh it out a little?

    I may have missed a point here, but why does Isaiah say it's getting late only seconds after offering to buy Harold lunch? It's obviously not late in the day, so it's getting late for what?

    I'm done. I hope this doesn't come across as too negative - most of the above is a prime example of hair-splitting. I don't think I've ever written so critical a comment (I read your 'critic' piece, so you've only got yourself to blame )

    Most of what everyone said also applies... interesting story, well-written as always, etc etc. You certainly have the versality to apply yourself to any number of genres with apparent ease. I'm envious! Cheers.



  • The Oscars Team
    June 28
    Edit | Reply
    This story/poem is hereby officially accepted as a nomination for the SW Oscars. Congratulations on your nomination! You will be notified [via IM] to submit this story in its specific category when the contest opens. Congratulations, once again! Keep up the excellent work!

    Admin
    SW Oscars


  • sberendt gold member
    June 22

    Edit | Reply
    I've definitely read it this before, but I guess I failed to comment on it. Loved it the same as I did last time! The whole mirror holding slivers of the past and whatnot? Awesome idea. And him flipping out and killing the dude? Nice. I can totally see someone like him doing that.

    Nice story!

    ~sberendt


  • Jennywinnie
    June 22
    Edit | Reply
    I was reading on and on...it really captured me from the start and then when he pushes Isaiah in the furnace...I was completely surprised...wow I totally didn't expect that at all.

    And then the end! So is it the light that had been inside Isaiah that kept saying...it's getting late...it's getting late...

    Interesting


  • Queenie-Chan
    June 18
    Edit | Reply
    Cool story. I really liked the concept behind it. Very sci-fi like.

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