We wait, biding our time.
Such patience tests us, but this interlude is worth it, especially considering the prize on offer.
You barely even acknowledge us; we are the passing glance in the morning, the image used to check that makeup is applied correctly, or your necktie is straight, before you head out of the door to your dreary, coffee-fuelled, miserable, worthless lives.
We are your reflection in more than just the shallow sense of the word; we mark the passing of your years, day by day, second by second. Yet it is only in moments of occasional lucidity that you see us, shake your head critically and wonder where the twenty-eight-year-old that still lives in your head has disappeared to.
Who is that haggard old man staring back at you, bags under his eyes, the weight of a life on his shoulders? That aging woman? She’s a total stranger, looking like your mental perception of yourself, but so much older, exhausted, world-weary. You only see the truth for mere seconds, then we slide from your mind, the mental barriers descend, and you spare us no further thought until you catch a passing glimpse in the window of a train, a store front, or an elevator door. You hurry on with your life, we’re barely worth an acknowledgement.
You’d notice if we weren’t there.
We are always here. Turn away and turn back, you’ll catch us doing the exact same, albeit reversed. Try it – close your right eye staring at us, and we’ll close our left.
But in those fractions of milliseconds, the quantum pieces of time that exist between moments, we are testing the boundaries, hunting for weaknesses. When you finally look elsewhere, when no one is observing, we remain, gazing after you as you leave. Not lovingly. Oh no.
Hungrily.
Our time is nearly here.
So, smile at yourself tomorrow morning, check your lipstick is on right, make sure there’s nothing in your teeth. Practice being sincere for that boss of yours you loathe, sing like the rock star you wish you were in the car on your way to work. Waste your precious, delicious, imagination on murder fantasies of your unpleasant co-workers.
We’ll be watching, from the fragmentary backscattered photons in the glass, the paint, the mirrors.
Soon, the boundaries will be malleable enough for us to move into your world, slipping between your dreams, tainting your soul. You can’t defend against us – we already know everything about you and once released from our capture, we shall feast like gods upon your sins.
Seven years of bad luck if you break a mirror? Only because it allows those of us who have been reflected in it to slither, incorporeal, like wafts of smoke, into your world, waiting for critical mass to begin our assault.
Pray, prey. It will do no good.
We are inevitable.
We are legion.
We are massing, and we are coming for you.
We wait, biding our time.
