My reflection

I was at the antique market looking for a good-size mirror for my room.  Size is the only criteria that matters really, since all mirrors function the same and only homosexuals concern themselves with frame types and shape.  All I want is my reflection.

(I'm sure it will get around that I already have a pair of floor-to-ceiling mirrors acting as my closet doors.  That's quite a lot of mirror for one person, it will be said.  Fortunately, I'm not known to consult public opinion about anything.)

Anyway, I didn't know what a "good-size" was.  There isn't room on my walls for a mirror.  The surfaces in my room are already overrun; there's an Ikea clock, a cork-board, my nieces' art, a tambourine, a painting on wood of a boy holding a basket of apples, and so forth.  No matter where I turn, I'm already looking at something that relates to me.

And that was what hit me at the antique market.  The realization that the parade of useless bric-a-brac around me was a collection of reflections of lives lived.  No matter how dull or opaque, every object is a mirror of some sort.

Looking around my room now, I can see reflection hidden everywhere.  Here is one trapped in the chest of a metallic robot.  And there's the ebony display on my cellphone.  I can see myself in the glossy surface of my laptop.  Or in unflattering wide-angle, on back of this spoon.  There is the clock radio, the whole glass surface of my desk, and the undulating surface of this cold black coffee.

But off all these mirrors, the most vivid reflection seems to be wall of text in front of me, inching its way upward on my computer screen.  Color and shape is nothing more than the path of light distorted.  But thoughts and text are many paths interpreted; a true reflection of a mind.