Ballyhoo at the Hall of Mirrors

“Step right up, step right up! Come see the amazing, the magical, the mesmerizing HALL OF MIRRORS. See yourself like you’ve never seen yourself before. You’ll be entranced. You’ll be astounded. You’ll be enlightened. Gaze into your own reflection and see the wonders of what can be, what will be, what was never to come. What’s your name son, what’s your name?”

“Oh, Micah,” he shouted over the blaring calliope.

“Micah! Step up here. Step up. Five little tickets and you, my son, can see the wonders of the universe reflected in your own eyes.”

Micah rubbed his hand through his disheveled hair and took three steps up to the stage of the Hall of Mirrors. Lights and cartoon images towered over him as the crier took five tickets and pushed him through the velvet curtains.

“Enjoy the show, kid!”

Micah let his eyes adjust to the low lighting. He shuffled forward and found himself staring at a serpentine mirror, bent in horizontal hills of convex and concave, warping his image too thin in some areas and too fat in other depending on where he stood. He laughed as he leaned back and forth making his body expand and contract.

The next mirror elongated his entire body so that he looked to be standing fifteen feet tall and the next shortened him to a mere three feet tall.

There was a doorway after this mirror; above it was a sign that read, “Into the Future.”

Inside was a single free standing mirror. When he gazed upon it he saw himself as an aged and withered old man. His hair was gray and whispy, his skin weather beaten, his wrinkles had wrinkles. He stood tall, but his image was stooped and held a cane. He smiled at his image and a pair of dentures jiggled back.

The next doorway had a sign that read, “Battle of the Sexes.”

Another room with another single free standing mirror. He peered into this one and saw a leggy blond with large breasts bursting from a tight tube top.

“Damn, girl, I’d hit it,” Micah said as he gripped his own breasts and squeezed.

Another doorway, another free standing mirror, another doorway, another free standing mirror. Each doorway had a sign.

An anvil dropped on his rubbery head in “Cartoon Classics.”

He flexed his wings as an insectoid human in “Insect Infestation.”

He intuited self-imagery between space and time in “Kant’s Korner.”

Door after door, image after image. He was entranced, he was astounded, and he was enlightened.

Then came the final door, which read, “Visage of Unimaginable Horrors.”

He hesitated. There was no going back and there were no alternative exits. What would he see? His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped and stepped forward.

Tears streamed down his face as he stared at the image. He cluched his stomach and choked back vomit. He would never be the same.

The mirror was a perfectly ordinary mirror showing Micah an exact reflection of himself.