The Glad Man

Ever since the divorce, Alain found himself avoiding mirrors.

It wasn’t a conscious decision at first. Except for the bathrooms, his house had become barren of them. Sylvia had taken the large cheval mirror that had sat quietly in the corner of the bedroom, the sole spectator of a marriage doomed from the start. Once it had followed Syliva to her new bungalow across town, Alain’s reflection could typically only be found above the sink while he brushed his teeth or washed his hands, a sight that he could easily avoid by occupying his attention elsewhere. If he were honest, the time that he was most likely to see his own reflection was in the black, sheer screen of his phone after it had died and powered off, the battery neglected after hours of mindless scrolling while on the couch. And even then, Alain shifted his sight elsewhere, typically taking this as a sign to move from the Chesterfield to his bed for the evening.

But as the months dragged, Alain began actively avoiding his own reflection. Every insecurity he had about his own body - his own self - seemed all the more pronounced now, these flaws now the only features he could focus on. His hairline, his degrading posture, the bags under his eyes. He knew in the back of his mind that he was playing up these qualities, that the way he saw himself wasn’t an accurate portrayal of how the rest of the world did, but that did little to stop him from fixating on his large pores, his gray-ing complexion, and tired creases. After a while, his reflection became an unwelcome guest in the house, one that he avoided at all costs.

Looking back, Alain couldn’t remember the first day it happened. He worked from home, balancing Excel files for people he never and will never meet face-to-face, and the days had begun to blend even before Sylvia and his split. Had been pacing outside his office, an activity he had once claimed helped him focus and brainstorm, but now seemed more aimless. His bathroom door across the hall was open, the sink directly across from him as he marched. His gaze remained on his feet and the floor in front of him, nothing in his peripheral other than the bathroom whenever he turned to pace in the opposite direction.

And it was in that peripheral that he caught a glimpse of something. The mirror above the sink took up the entire alcove of the wall; a flat, slightly smudged rectangle of glass. The undefined silhouette of his figure was unmistakable in the corner of his eye, matching his shuffling up and down the hallway. But on the edge of his vision, he spotted something new - a shadow in the reflection that he had never noticed in his years of pacing. He halted his march and looked at the mirror, but was met only with the dour look of a man counting down the hours, no shadow where he could have sworn his peripheral had sensed.

He knew he was tired—well, maybe not tired—exhausted may be the better word. He was sleeping more than he had ever done in his life, really. And even when he was up and working, his day never took him beyond his office chair, couch, or hall, where he paced. But despite the lack of physical exertion in his day, he was never able to shake the feeling of being spent, both physically and emotionally.

For these reasons, the shadow in his mirror was easy to brush away, even after it persisted for weeks – a consistent smudge out of the corner of his eye that vanished whenever he tried to fixate on the reflection.

It was only after a particularly troubling day at work filled with unanswered emails and technical hiccups that he noticed a change in the mirror. The shadow that had once vanished from view whenever he focused on it remained, even after he looked up to focus on the reflection.

And it was that Tuesday, at 2:43 p.m., that Alain first laid eyes on the Glad Man in the mirror.

The man stood in the space the shadow once occupied – right on the border of the mirror’s glass, partially out of frame. His figure reached the top of the mirror, towering over Alain’s reflection. He had a baggy coat that reached past the bottom of the mirror, water dripping down the material as if he had just come in from the rain. He was lit harshly, a bright light accentuating the shadows and creases on his clothes and face, as if illuminated by a bright flash that did not affect anything else in the room. And on the half of his face that was visible, a broad smile sat painted, almost mockingly gleeful. As Alain stared unmoving at this Glad Man in the mirror, the man gazed back with bright, orange-tinted eyes.

Alain waited for his adrenaline to kick in. For the lurch from deep in his chest to activate, firing every neuron in his body with a single, focused command: run.

But instead, Alain felt fixated. The man stood unmoving, just half his body visible in the mirror, as if he was standing off-center of the sink, staring forward. But of course, there was no one else in the house, just Alain, his reflection, and the glad-looking man.

Alain studied the man’s face, frozen and unblinking. Despite the cruel look on his too-wide smile, there was a familiarity to his face that Alain couldn’t shake. As if the man’s cruel smile had knowledge about something within Alain that he was keeping to himself, a secret shared by only the two men.

And then Alain blinked, and the man was gone, Alain’s wide-eyed reflection the sole figure remaining in the mirror.

This ritual continued for weeks. Sometimes the Glad Man would appear just for a moment in the reflection, sometimes he would disappear for days. Other times he would be center of the reflection, looming behind Alain, who could swear he could almost feel breath on his neck. After a while, it wasn’t only the bathroom mirror where Alain could find the man. Any reflection in the house where Alain might catch his own image was joined by the towering, smiling man.

But that panic that Alain had expected never did arrive – instead, the Glad Man brought out a sense of morbid curiosity within Alain. Whenever he appeared, Alain found himself locked into a staring contest with a figure who never blinked, never moved a muscle, only watched, his wide smile dotted by two ridiculing orange eyes.

And that twinging sense of familiarity never left either. Alain would stare at the Glad Man in the mirror, trying to grasp where he had seen the figure, his face warped in just such a way to remove any relation to a recognizable face. The expression on the man's face never changed, a deriding sense of superiority, like the man’s happiness was at the expense of Alain’s, and he was proud of this fact.

Even when Alain wasn’t looking in the mirror, he still found his thoughts drawn back to the Glad Man. He would sit at his computer in his empty-feeling home, the exhaustion of years of a dying marriage that culminated in an emotionally draining divorce weighing on him like a thick cloud, each breath he took drawing more of it into his lungs. And he would think of the man in the mirror, knowing he was there without having to look. What did he have to be so happy about?

Over time, every moment of melancholy Alain found himself slumping into felt like a personal victory for the Glad Man, like he was giving the man in the mirror exactly what he wanted. But, after a few months of consistent visits by the Glad Man, a strange feeling began to bubble.

Alain never considered himself a petty man, nor someone who was ruled by his emotions. But whenever he found himself giving into the exhaustion, allowing him the time to wallow in his situation, a new emotion began to rise to the surface.

Contempt.

The man in the mirror was enjoying this dance - Alain indulging in self-pity while the Glad Man stood triumphant and ecstatic - and a spark began to burn in Alain’s stomach.

Therapy, meds, mindful exercises. Had tried all of these to attempt to reignite some of the fire he once had in him, with no success. But now, with this giant, mocking man grinning at him every time he looked in the mirror…Alain wasn’t sure if he could consider this feeling motivation, but it was enough to ignite the smallest of changes.

And so, Alain started to take action. Slowly at first. Finding moments where he would allow himself to slink into his couch for hours, and instead leaping up to his feet. Just standing at first, not accomplishing anything, sometimes for almost half an hour, but it still felt like a small victory. A tiny win against the Glad Man in the mirror.

Before long, Alain found himself going outside again. No major exercise, just walks. Anything to stop him from slumping down and having the day wash past him. Movement became his go-to weapon against the Glad Man – while he wouldn’t say his mood was improving, that petty contempt he felt in the pit of his stomach for the man in the mirror kept him active, kept him productive when every part of his body was telling him to lie down for hours. And that could be considered progress, right?

The man in the mirror remained present throughout the weeks, his smile wide despite his wet clothes, but Alain didn’t care. He even found himself flipping off the mirror more often than not. And the times when Alain found himself staring at the man, his glowing orange eyes locking Alain in a trance, he would snap himself out and hurry to clean a portion of the house.

Alain wasn’t even striving for happiness anymore. If he was going to improve his life entirely out of spite, so be it. No one ever said self-improvement needed to come from a place of hopefulness. If he needed to live the rest of his life fueled by energetic bursts of scorn, then so be it.

And it was during one of these motivated rushes of energy, an energetic sweep of the kitchen to stave off a two o’clock nap, that he noticed the photograph under the fridge.

Its edge poked out right below the bottom of the appliance, knocked loose by the broom as Alain cleaned. He looked down at the visible corner of the photo, recognizing it as one that used to hang on the front of the fridge. The sheet must have been knocked loose while Sylvia was moving out, drifting under the fridge and out of sight. Alain swept at the photo an additional time to free it, bending down for a closer look.

He couldn’t recall the exact occasion the photo displayed. Maybe it was a night of celebration, maybe just a Tuesday night with friends, no reason needed other than to enjoy each other’s company. But displayed was a group of friends, Sylvia as well, posed in front of a glowing neon sign that lit them all from behind in fluorescent pink lighting.

The only detail that Alain remembered from the night was the rain, and how much the group enjoyed themselves despite the weather.

Because there in the photo Alain stood, grinning from ear to ear in genuine happiness, water dripping from his jacket, his eyes gleaming a faint orange hue from the photographer’s camera flash.

What did he have to be so happy about?

Had life truly been that much better than it is now? Undoubtedly, he was in a different stage in life, the complications of an adult life replacing the youthful optimism that the Alain in the photo displayed.

But in spite of everything the past year threw at him, deep down that young Alain was still buried in him somewhere. He might be starting from a different kind of zero, but the possibility of returning to that joyful optimism hadn’t yet been fully extinguished. Despite the upsets, the rocky times and what felt like a year wasted in miasma, the Alain in the kitchen was still the same Alain as in the photo. That smiling, glad Alain.

Alain shifted his gaze from the photo to the front of the fridge, his reflection shining in the aluminum steel. There was only one figure in the reflection now. The beginnings of a faint, glad expression growing across his face.