The Magic Mirror

Do you ever see things out of the corner of your eye? Things that seem like they just don't belong to this world? Like the time one winter I was walking toward the door of the cafeteria and could have sworn it was snowing outside. There were flakes coming down, and a little dusting of snow on the ground. I fully expected to walk out into snow. But I opened the door and there was nothing there. Nothing at all; no snow or rain or anything. I can't think of any rational explanation for seeing that snow.

I used to read a lot of fantasy type books. That may be surprising but it's true. The idea of other worlds, other dimensions and alternate realities fascinated me. Sometimes I would imagine what it would be like to be inside one of those worlds. I think everyone does that sometimes, when our reality just seems too boring or mean. Many people don't like being confined to this world, they want to explore other places, interesting places. They may do it by books or movies or poetry or drugs, but in any case the desire is the same. They want to experience a new world, a mystical world that will somehow breathe hope and life back into their existence.

For most people this is nothing more than an idle amusement, a way to satisfy the human need to do useless things instead of productive work. But sometimes it can dominate a person's life. They actually believe that some world is real, or they try to recreate that world. It's kind of sad, but since they are better adjusted than the average drug addict we let them continue with their mostly harmless games.

But sometimes you wonder. These stories, these superstitions and mythologies are so pervasive that it seems that they must have some concrete source. Have these obsessed fans really stumbled onto something? Are there really other worlds? Are the famous writers and directors who publish accounts of these worlds simply making them up, or are they actually seeing other places, real places, and simply reporting what they observe? Most people would scoff at this idea, but I have seen things that make me doubt the common wisdom.

There was a certain mirror in my residence hall in college. It was on the south wing of the second floor. It was a very plain utilitarian thing, with a wooden frame painted white and bolted to the wall. Nobody seemed to notice it. Nobody except me. I sometimes saw things in that mirror, strange things out of the corner of my eye. Before you jump to conclusions, if you have not already, let me say that I never did any drugs in college. I never even drank alcohol. I always stayed sober. Always and without fail.

Now you might start talking about stress or illness or other things. Your skepticism is well and proper. But know that I do not say things lightly. I too read the Skeptical Inquirer regularly, even then. I knew then as I do now that sightings of the paranormal are almost always easy to explain by science and common sense.

But this mirror was not one of them. The vague forms moving around behind it were not an illusion. They were glimpses into another world. I know this as surely as I know that matter is made of atoms. I saw them too many times and in too many mental states to leave any doubt that they were real.

One day as I was walking down the hall, I saw the clearest picture I had ever seen. That scene is still implanted in my memory. I cannot find words to properly convey what I saw and the feelings that arose from it, but I can try. Through the mirror, I saw a room. It was a beautiful room, luminous, full of life and good cheer. But overall it was not unusual or bizarre. It was quite plainly some kind of lounge or common area. There were couches, chairs, and carpets. There were board games resembling some cross between chess and Go. There were small decorative sculptures, beautiful geometric constructs made of silvery threads and wooden rods. There were musical instruments laying casually about, waiting for anyone to take them up and make the room more beautiful.

Everything about this room spoke of an intelligent and clever people who prized logic and math and beauty and music and poetry and saw no distinction between these things. It was a wondrous place, a land of beauty. And yet somehow I knew that it was nothing more than a college residence hall. I knew that this was some alternate version of the place that I lived in, and that it was populated by ordinary students.

Then I dimly heard some beautiful music from beyond the mirror, accompanied by singing of an undescribably wondrous quality. The music grew louder, and soon I saw some of these people enter the room. There were three of them. One was playing some kind of flute, and the others were singing as they skipped into the lounge. They were the most indescribably beautiful people I had ever seen, surpassing any human beauty that I have ever seen or heard of. I do not know how or why this impression was generated, only that it was. For these people were slight of build, and appeared as elves or fairies. But they were not ghostly or otherwordly. They looked like a type of human, they were a picture of what humans could and should be, and but for their size I would have called them human. The ones I saw were about four feet tall. There was none of that anerexic waif-like quality to them that elves are often depicted as having. They simply looked healthy in mind, body, and spirit, well adjusted to their world and their environment.

One of them stopped singing stepped up to the mirror. As she approached, I wondered what she would think of the sight of me. Were these portals common in her world, or would she be as stunned by the sight of another place as I was? I tried to think of something intelligent to do to greet her, but my befuddled mind was unable to do anything but stand and stare.

But she did not appear to see me. She stepped up onto a platform, turned sideways, and began to adjust her dress. She looked to one of her friends and they began to talk in wonderfully melodious voices. I knew that they were simply chatting idly, perhaps preparing for a party or other pleasant amusement. They did not see me. To them the portal looked like an ordinary mirror, just as the mirror normally looked to me.

I wanted to go to that world. I knew that anything good or pure in this world could be but a pale shadow to life in that place. I wanted to step through the mirror and start a new life in this enchanting place. I wanted to get to know these people, to learn the beauty and peace that existed in their world. For I knew that they were simply an alternate form of human, and I felt that I could be like them if only I would step through the mirror.

But I did not know if that was possible. Was this a window or a door? I did not want to touch the mirror, for fear of somehow breaking the spell. I suspected that there was no barrier to travel due to the fact that the air of the hallway seemed to be getting cleaner and purer. Was matter passing through the mirror?

I thought of a way to test this. I leaned closer to the mirror and exhaled. I knew that if it was only a mirror, there would be condensation on the glass. But my breath did not stop on any glass pane. I saw some of the drapes in the room move slightly.

I then resolved to step through. But before I could move through the gateway, I saw something that stopped my motion just as surely as a solid pane of glass.

One of the elves coughed. The beautiful face contorted into an expression of displeasure that hurt my soul. To see such a person displeased was to see paradise lost. The rest of them then began to sniff the air, and then they too looked displeased. One of them picked up one of the musical instruments and began to play it and sing a song. As she did so, the air began to sparkle with a flight of light blue sparks. The sparks danced around the room near the mirror, settling down into the floor after a few seconds.

I sank down to the floor in shock and horror. I realized then who I was in comparison to these people. I remembered that all Westerners smelled bad to cleaner cultures like the Japanese, and I realized that to a cleaner and purer people the disparity would be far worse. I realized that I was an ogre. I was a smelly, ugly, misshapen, unintelligent, hulking six-foot-two one-sixty-five pound brute. I was a leprous clumsy monstrosity in comparison to these people. If I went into their world, I would defile and pollute it. I would spread noxiousness wherever I walked. They would flee in terror from the thing that stepped into their world, and that room would never again be a beautiful place.

The world of beauty that I had seen was forever closed to me. Not because I could not go, but because I was smart enough to realize that I should not go. I, like many others, had sometimes desired to enter other worlds. But now the option was real; the mirror had shown such a world and had given me a chance to enter it. I did not belong there, and although I could simply step through to a world of wonder I knew that such an act would be a great crime. The world would quite simply cease to be what it was if I entered.

That day, my thoughts of other worlds simply stopped. I concentrated more on my studies, dismissed all thoughts of fantasy, and eventually became a Certified Public Accountant. My one brush with the fantastic made me realize that I belonged to this world and would not, could not ever be any place else. I settled down into a boring and comfortable life, and was completely contented.

But sometimes I wonder, when I look at a mirror, if I am being watched by a hideous nine-foot troll from a dark and evil place.