Page 2

It was a large old mirror set in dark, heavy wood. When he bent close, he saw that the glass was old and stained and reflected only erratically and in places not at all, and that the frame was worn smooth with time and chipped in several places. Far from reducing his enthusiasm for the object, these imperfections made him want it all the more.

It turned out to be not for sale. The owners had never thought it was worth offering, and said nobody had even looked at it in longer than they could remember; but Diego had set his mind on it, and after a phone call or two he was putting it, packed carefully in bubble-wrap and sacking, into the rear seat of his car. He drove home in a fever of excitement. Somehow, he knew it might be the most important thing he had ever found.

Once back in the old house, he took the mirror into his study and unpacked it and examined it lovingly, watching the play of light and shadow in the stained and imperfectly reflecting glass. He stroked the wood with his fingers, imagining what had caused each crack and chip and fissure, and when. Finally, because it was late and he was exhausted after his long drive, being not as young as he once had been, he left the mirror for the next day and decided to write down a newly conceived twist to the plotline of his latest novel before going to bed. Opening up his notebook – he still preferred pen and paper for his preliminary drafts and story outlines – he got to work.

It was hours before he finally finished and got up to leave, with the clock at close to midnight. Walking to the door, he glanced at the old mirror as he passed – and stopped dead.

Instead of what he was expecting, his study reflected imperfectly and distortedly, twisted and misshapen but still unmistakably his study, he saw the darkened streets of a city. The vision was so distinct and free of distortion that he stepped closer to the mirror for a look, bending to peer into it, and that was when he noticed two things; first, that he could see no reflection of himself, and secondly, that he felt, on his face and neck, a cool breeze flowing from the dark and deserted streets on the other side of the glass.

Diego was not – despite all the stories he wrote – a particularly brave man. He never willingly courted unnecessary danger, and being already on the wrong side of middle age he was not capable of much sustained physical effort. So when he tried to touch the glass and his hand went through into – into something else, what he could not tell – he pulled it back quickly and left the room quickly, telling himself he was imagining things because of his exhaustion. And, repeating this to himself, he went to bed, and – most uncharacteristically – tossed and turned all night, strange reams roiling his sleep.

The next morning, in the narrow light of day that entered through his windows, he examined the mirror. It seemed as usual except for the strange and wavering quality of its reflection. When he passed his fingers over the glass he felt ripples and bumps in it, but for all that it was glass, hard and cold, and he couldn’t reach through it into some unknown city. Shaking his head, telling himself he had imagined the whole thing, he settled down to write. He was at a crucial point in the draft of the novel, and the hours went by quickly as he wrote. But a part of his mind remained with the mirror, and every few minutes he would glance towards it, expecting something – he didn’t know what. But it remained unchanged and as dusk fell slowly at the end of the day, the shadows grew around it and its reflection grew even more dim and irregular. But it still reflected the study.

Weeks passed. The draft of the novel was complete and lay in notebooks on Diego’s desk, and he, diligent as usual, was at work on his computer, tapping out the final version. Somehow, though, the zest of fulfilment that he was used to when he arrived at this stage of his writing, when the skeleton of the story had been laid out complete and all he had to do was clothe it with the flesh and skin of conversation and characterisation, was missing. He felt that something was wrong, and his writing seemed to him to be uncharacteristically stiff and wooden. And then it finally happened. His writing petered out and reached a complete standstill.

[ Continue to page 3 ]