Dark Glass

As I sit here, the darkness of the room surrounds me with comfort covered in the threads of dread. Outside, I don’t know if the world is real or imagined. It seems silly. Everyone knows what’s real, don’t they.

Don’t they?

I used to, or at least I thought I did. That feels like a lifetime again. Or has it only been a few days.

I look at my hands, hoping their familiar shape will ground me. They stretch out before me: manicured nails on slender fingers. The palms crisscrossed with lines that many say tell the future, but others say is just a pattern of how your hands were folded in the womb. The backs of them are smooth, with thick veins running from wrist to fingertip.

A few days ago, they were youthful, sun-kissed.

Today, they have the scares of battles I don’t remember. Or maybe I do but they are too horrible to think about. Or maybe I do. Maybe I’ve buried them so deep the truth can’t breathe.

It started simply. A shopping trip. Nothing more than a long-planned day at the Mart, always postponed by schedules, money, life. But today was the day. We piled into the Rover, our laughter filling the air, our hopes light as the morning sun.

Today was the day. We piled into the Rover, our laughter and happy expectation filling the air.

The talk was excitement—shops, food, and what treasures we might find. Fancy stores for the rich and shameless. Darker ones for the curious and odd.

There was the expected question of “will we have enough room for everything?” And the laughing answer, “that’s what rooftops and rope is for”.

No one wanted politics. No heavy talk. Just friends escaping their worlds.

I sat, my body pushed against the door, face almost touching the window, watching the fields turn into suburbs, then the inner city. It was funny. Id never noticed before how there were almost walls between the “worlds” where different people lived.

Much like all the bits of life. Rules. Stay in the lines.

At the Mart, we synchronized our watches. Four hours to explore before meeting at the dockside café.

4 hours.

We could roam, touch, see, breathe everything the Mart had to offer. Rebecca clung to me—she didn’t like browsing alone—so we became an impromptu duo.

It was stores in the stores. She, like me, really didn’t want to browse the new stuff. We avoided the new, the polished, the things you can order online at 2 a.m.

We hunted the strange, the storied. We wanted the oddities. The curios.

We found resale clothing stores where we could strip to the bares and pretend to be someone from a different age or culture. When we left, she had a collection of bags with treasures she would use for both parties and work. I like the play, but nothing caught me fancy. No. I was waiting for the “one”. The one piece that would call my soul. That knew my name before I had even viewed it.

It sounds stupid and funny that objects would have that kind of sway and power.

But they do.

They are made from the products of the earth. Dirt, stone, wood and gems. Each carry with it a vibration. A memory of what was.

My grandmother had always warned me about that. Never buy second hand she said. The ghosts live in the things we touch.

I remember laughing at her for that. She was old, and I had imagined a bit senile.

But now. Now. Now.

The shopping continued until we found Mr. Pennyworth’s Emporium.

Subtitle: The Grand, the Odd, and the Unusual.

Rebecca hated it instantly. Said the place felt “off.” I teased her, blamed hunger, promised it would be quick, then we could say we had covered this whole end of the Mart.

Reluctantly she came in with me, but would go no further than the threshold.

Inside, behind the counter, stood the proprietor: a man ancient enough to have outlived his own shadow. Deep-cut wrinkles, eyebrows like wild silverbush that almost joined his hair. A brilliant white-silver they perfectly framed his eyes.

His eyes.

Something about them struck me. Had I met him before? Something from my job? Or maybe as a child. His memory felt etched into my soul, even though we had just met.

His eyes.

Blue? Green? Flecks of gold. Seemed an impossible combination for eyes, but yet, he had them.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Looking for anything in particular?”

Rebecca muttered a quick no and lingered by the door, as if stepping past the threshold would trap her.

Turning back to meet her gaze, “Ill only be a minute,” I said.

I promised her I’d be quick and wandered the cramped aisles. The store was tiny and overflowing—tea sets, jewelry, hats, paintings. Shoes, which made my stomach curl. Why would anyone want to walk in someone else’s steps that literally?

But I was looking for something else. Something that would call me.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Rebecca fidgeting at the doorway. Her body said what her voice was afraid to. She didn’t like the store. Or the proprietor. Or maybe both.

I continued on my quest. I had been in all the shops and had found nothing that called to me. I covered the few aisles in the store, not lingering, but not too quickly. I wanted to find my treasure to remember the day with.

And finally, it did.

In a small fabric-draped alcove sat a Victorian dressing-table. On it lay a tray of vanity trinkets. And among them—a mirror.

Small. Bronze-colored. Maybe 6 x 8.

Its glass it contained was nearly black, yet still reflective—barely.

The tag had very little information for an antique piece. It simply read “antique-style hand mirror — decorative.”

Nothing else

“Do you know anything about it”, I asked.

The proprietor said it was simply a curiosity.

“But it’s so dark,” I said.

“Just a curiosity,” he said repeated. “People used to back mirrors with black glass to ward off evil spirits. Others say you can see dreams in them.”

He said it with a shrug, like it’s nonsense, but the old words from my grandmother came to my ears for a moment. I dispatched them quickly.

I picked it up and instantly felt a warmth, no, a connection with it. It felt heavier than I thought it would have been.

“How much,” I asked.

“It’s on the tag,” he said.

I Perfect. Affordable. Meant for me.

Rebecca called me to hurry. I paid quickly, the old man wrapping the mirror with neat, practiced hands. Paper crinkled. Something in me felt… claimed.

I grabbed my treasure and off to a final festive dinner we went.

The car ride home was filled with the same giddy laughter as the morning had. Everyone chirping about their treasures. Bags and bags filled the back deck of the Rover. Everything was there except my little mirror. No. I kept it safely next to me. It almost felt like I would be abandoning it by putting it with the others.

Saying my goodnights I quickly went to my apartment. I couldn’t calm my excitement about unwrapping my treasure, but I knew the work week was beginning and things had to be done.

I rushed through chores, then carried the little bag to my bedroom like a relic. I unwrapped it carefully. Placed it on the vanity. Sitting at the vanity I carefully unwrapped it, letting the paper fall in an unruly pile on the floor. With both hands, I placed it in the center of the desk. It was perfect. The piece that had been missing.

The light on the desk reflected off the decorative curves making them almost glow and adding a sharper contrast to the deeper color of the mirror itself. I ran my fingers along the glass.

It could see my dreams he said. I wondered, as it reflected by face, what dreams it saw for me.

Time seemed to bend a little and it was later than I thought. Patting my treasure once I readied myself for the good sleep from a day well spent.

The good sleep didn’t follow. Not exactly. There was a place. Somewhere I had been before, full of people that I thought I knew but couldn’t place.

A man dropping a seed into dirt. The seed becoming a city upside-down. I felt myself both standing and falling as I watched.

I woke gasping, lungs tight. Breathing was hard. Labored. The dream held me even though my eyes were in the semi darkened room. Crossing to the sink I splashed water in my face. Too much Mexican food I thought.

I went back to sleep, But the dreams did not stop new dreams popped up but the first one lingered like lavender in the rain.

Monday, the dream still clung to me like damp fabric. Rebecca waved her hand in front of my face at lunch; I never noticed.

At home, I was drawn to stare at my treasure again. I knew I should be preparing for the next day, but I wanted to give it some time. My time.

I sat there. Tracing its ornate curves from the outside of the piece to the inside. The dark reflection of myself staring back. Quiet at first. Then accusatory for bad time management. It was late and my preparations for the next day would need to be done quickly.

Sleep came fast, and the dream returned.

A school. Young children passing a note of a love that was too young to exist. A stolen hand held on the playground and suddenly they were older. Apart now, he had become a farmer and she a woman who could summon lighting. The storm of longing falling like rain between them. The seed had given way to a tree in a city of unfamiliar buildings.

I woke to imagined thunder.

_________________________________________

Tuesday: the same. Work a blur. Dream residue thick in my chest.

Tuesday night:

A man in a dark room, approaching a colossal, illuminated clock. . I saw the man look into the clock as he watched the lives of others Inside it—lives unfolding. Marriages. Dances. Ocean swimmers. A man leaping from a cliff.

A scream—his or mine—ripped me awake.

_________________________________________

Wednesday: workday dread blooming beneath my ribs.

Wednesday night: I don’t remember going to sleep that night, but I remember a barren landscape. Steam rising. A figure sitting on nothing. Genderless. Timeless.

Then standing beside a burning bush.

My scream this time was definitely mine.

I closed my eyes, thinking I would return to the fitful sleep- but no. I awoke in the dream, the figure now standing on a hill next to a burning bush.

_________________________________________

Thursday: running late, heart heavy. Work. The people with endless wants and needs. All I wanted was to go back to sleep.

Thursday night:

Women dancing in circles of rose-flame. Their language unknown.

Then only one dancer, now in the sky under a too-full moon.

Then a man dressed in red-orange, heat radiating without fire. He beckoned me.

I fell into a river.

Woke choking.

_________________________________________

Friday: All week had been noise—work, complaints, life—but underneath it all was the mirror.

Friday night: I stared into it again. My face wavered, accusing me of wasted time.

Then sleep. It arrived before I knew I was in it. This time the dream was chaos. People running, biking, walking—always away from me. The dancers returned, now joined by men. Their ritual darker.

The man in the cave appeared again, but now only his silhouette glowed. He raised his hand, and stones rose like puppets caught in invisible strings.

Then a burning room. A fleeing figure. Flames licking my skin.

The figure turned— and I saw.

My face.

My scream was so loud the neighbors called the authorities.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I lied. “Just a bad dream.”

After they left, I sat staring with the mirror.

And suddenly I was inside the dream.

Watching others. Watching myself. Watching myself watching them. People I didn’t know. Some living joy, others unimaginable pain. And I saw myself watching them. All of us trapped somewhere we had never asked to go

As I sit here, the darkness of the room surrounds me with comfort covered in the threads of dread. Outside, I don’t know if the world is real or imagined. It seems silly. Everyone knows what’s real, don’t they.

Don’t they?

I used to. Or I thought I did. That feels like a lifetime ago. Or only days.

Time has become elastic, stretching and snapping like it resents being measured.

The mirror sits on the vanity where I placed it, innocent as any object until you understand what innocence costs. My fingers hover above it, afraid to touch, afraid not to.

If I look into it again, I know what will happen.

If I don’t… I know what will happen.

Dreams spill out of its surface now—

or maybe they spill out of me—

and I can’t tell the difference anymore.

People I’ve never met scream with my voice.

People I’ve never been burn with my skin.

The woman running is me.

The one watching is me.

The one dreaming is me.

The one trapped inside the dream is me.

The mirror isn’t showing me visions.

It’s showing me versions.

And I don’t know which one is real.

Or which one wants to be.

The darkness tightens, gentle as a hand across the mouth.

The only thing I know that is really true is that old quote: They promised that dreams come true, but they forgot that dreams are nightmares too.