The mirror reflects, but does not reveal. The soap washes my hands, but does not cleanse. The water rinses, but does not refresh. I don’t know who I see in the looking glass anymore. The widened eyes are a foreigner’s. My pupils shrink in the fluorescent light. My face is that of someone else. My chest rises and falls in frantic breaths. I can’t feel my arms…except for the burns on my wrists.
“God damn it!” The stranger says. I observe the reflection clutch his wrists while mine remain firmly clamped to the ceramic rim of the sink. My companion frantically rooted around the room beyond the glass and grasped the toilet paper, leaving distinct hand prints on the wall. Dumbly, the stranger wrapped layer after layer around the cuts on his wrists. After seeing the cuts bleed through the layers, the reflection cursed himself, whipping his head to and fro to find a suitable substitute.
My insides burn. Hatred in the color red spreads across my face. I grab the mirror and hurl it into the bathtub. The shattering, while horrifying, soothes the burning in my ears, but not in my face.
