There is such a thing as a faulty mirror. Not a mirror that merely distorts shapes a bit or a lot. These ones we know about: concave, convex, we have seen them before in funfairs and they cannot trick us anymore. Back in forty-eight, Orson Welles had them tamed already.
Sometimes they are not intentionally fancy, just… cheap. These ones, you might want to try and get tricked by. We had one of them in London. That mirror was reflecting the house of long and thin model students. The cheap reduced-to-clear diet had no effect on these guys.
No. Here I am talking truly faulty mirror. One that does not reflect the correct image. It is unclear where it picks it up from but one thing for sure, it is not not from whom who faces it.
Mind you, some mirrors are diligent. Take the one from your workplace. You’d meet it in the morning, when you have just arrived and need to wash your hands because your bicycle chain came off again or quickly check your hair as it is so windy today. This one does just fine. Your hair is neat and glossy, skin fresh, make up spotless. The morning sun adds a touch of grace and makes you so worth it. And the mirror captures it just fine.
However, try the mirror down your workplace local pub on a Friday night. This one gets it all wrong. Every single time. At least it’s consistent. You leave work, go for a drink and normally need the toilet at one point or another. Up to that moment you were rather jolly, having a good untroubled time. That’s precisely when you have to meet that vile mirror. Your face is that of roast chicken, your nose could easily lead French boats over a stormy North Sea, and you look like an exhausted racoon losing its pretend human shape (minus the stretchy balls).
You turn around but you’re alone in the room, it’s not someone else’s reflection you mistook for yours. The mirror is really pretending that is you. The lighting is not so good here but you couldn’t righteously blame so much on it. It could be a prank mirror which is really a screen displaying the results of an elaborate real time hag algorithm, but that seems a bit expensive. Besides, there couldn’t be any electrical equipment allowed in the restroom for health and safety reasons. Then…it has got to a portal to another dimension very much like our world. Only over there, people look terribly unhealthy. Mmmh, no, not very plausible. Surely they would be some lag.
In that case I can only see one explanation: mirrors simply get tired. It all ties in. The one from work just had a long quiet night, and for sure it gets breaks throughout the day. Why would it keep on reflecting if no one’s here to appreciate? Work bathrooms never get so busy, people are usually not very inclined to linger there. Therefore, those mirrors get plenty of rest and they can easily be sharp and zealous when you walk in. But the pub one on a Friday night must be exhausted with all those back and forth of pint drinkers. When you think about it, you never look so bad when you go for a quick drink on a weekday or for team lunch. It’s always on Fridays.
It must be such hard work scrutinizing and mimicking all those details. You have to understand colour, motion, acting, physics, light bounces… You need to analyze and assimilate every single detail, then seamlessly reproduce each to perfection. My… no wonder they wear themselves out.
So we got to the bottom of it, what to do about it now? Maybe I should talk to the pub owners and get them to swap mirrors halfway through the evening. I can very well understand the poor mirror is having a hard time but that’s doesn’t justify the groundless concerns inflicted to blameless customers either.
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