by John Hounded

What’s wrong with me? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me, Doctor.

I came home late yesterday evening from a busy day at the office, took off my hat and cleaned my shoes in the cloakroom, as usual. Then I looked in the mirror. But did I see my usual handsome reflection? No! I did not! Instead, I saw your all-too-familiar face grimacing back at me. And to top it off, you starting laughing.

Well, naturally I became furious and turned away in disgust. I threw my coat over the mirror to muffle the sound and left the cloakroom. However, as I entered the hallway you were there again, now standing tall in the full-length wall mirror, sniggering at me. I took off my jumper and hung it over the mirror. But then I realised that I could hear your infernal mocking echoing all around the house; it seemed that you were laughing in every mirror!

Well this was too much. In the lounge I had to conceal a mirror with my shirt. Then while using the bathroom lavatory your silly head continued to laugh at me from the cabinet mirror. I took off my trousers and threw them over the cabinet. But I could still hear your laughing coming from my bedroom. There I was forced to use my underpants and both my socks to muffle the various shaving and vanity mirrors on the dressing table. But still I couldn’t escape your wretched cackling. Standing naked in a house filled with mocking laughter, I now realised that I had no other options left open to me but to smash every mirror and every reflective surface I could find.

I began immediately, using a large wok, working systematically through each room. I wore an old pair of wellington boots to protect my feet. With each mirror I smashed your reflection became more and more withered and pathetic. It was working. When I had finished, I surveyed my work. It had amounted to the destruction of nearly all the furnishings of my house. But this matter paled against the blissful silence; not even the ticking of a clock disturbed the peace (as all were now broken).

I walked back into the cloakroom where your cruel jesting had begun, the mirror now lying in a hundred pieces. I picked up a fragment to see my true reflection. But a sinking, sickening fear filled my soul, for in the fragment I saw not my face but that of an old man, smiling through cracked and wrinkled skin. But worse was to come, for as I looked, I realised that the man was in fact me, in some horrible aged form, grinning an inane and ugly grin. Then he began to laugh. I was laughing at myself! I threw the fragment on the broken pile. Then I saw that all the fragments contained the reflection, and in every fragment the face was laughing at me! I ran into the hallway. From every piece of mirror, every splinter of glass and every jagged edge of crockery the face laughed at me, mocking me, until I was sick with terror. As we speak, every reflective surface in this room is laughing at me. I’ll never escape the laughing.

Help me please, Doctor.

I could tell that the doctor was trying not to laugh at me. He told me to take a paracetamol and get some sleep. I booked into a hotel and did as he said. The paracetamol helped my headache, and I suppose the sleep did help stop the laughing. Come to think of it, I hadn’t slept for three months before the incident. I’d had too much work to do. But sometimes I still hear the voice at night time, laughing, downstairs. Especially when I have work to do. Like now.