Life

It's 29/01/2057, to me, just another night. Like it happens for thousands of years. The weather is comfortable, the house is silent. The world outside is wild, but I'm safe at home. Family is out, the girl I like is sleeping, none of my good friends are online.

I ask myself: Should I light up another one or should I go to bed? Will dad ever notice that I'm messing around in his office?

In front of me, a little pink mirror with a sticky note attached. The lights don't work anymore, maybe just need new batteries or maybe they never worked.

Dad said he got the mirror since he was twenty-seven when he left a sharehouse he used to live in. The mirror used to stay hanging in the shower. He said he didn't know why or who was the owner. What he told me was, that he used the mirror all the time to talk to his best friend. I asked him many times how could he talk to his best friend looking into this little mirror that barely fits his face?

One day you will understand, maybe when you're twenty-seven, he says laughing and messing with my hair. I love my dad, he's smart, very funny and teaches me everything about life. I have the same hair color and the same nose as him, but he says I'm ten times more handsome because I also got my mom's blue eyes and pale skin.

I'll be fourteen years old in two weeks from now. I'm excited because my dad says he has something very important to teach me, something that he figured out by himself, something he recorded with the help of his best friend.

He says everything you visualize in your mind or think about makes much more sense when you talk to someone you trust and they listen to you carefully.

I never saw a picture of my dad with his best friend, but I've heard so many good stories of them both. My dad has it all written in his little black book that he likes to call "Moleskine". Grandpa gave it to him when he was at university. He read it to me since when I was five, but he never allowed me to read it alone. He says there are many topics I still can't understand by myself, so he always makes sure that he would explain all the details because there are things in life that we need to experience first. Since the beginning of the year, he covered his mirror with a sticky note.

I better stop using his matches, knowing my dad, he probably knows how many he had left in the box, I say out loud after a big yawn.

Suddenly, the mirror lights start to blink... I've seen this mirror for years and this is the first time I've seen it working. I scratch my eyes and the sticky note isn't there anymore. I look at my surroundings and I'm not in my dad's office anymore.

The board doesn't look the same. What's going on? I start questioning myself. What could it be happening?

Maybe the cookie I found in one of my dad's drawers is making me sick. I feel light-headed, almost like I'm about to throw up, but at the same time, it feels nice and intense like I'm on a rollercoaster. I can hear my thoughts louder, I can feel my sweat dripping down my arm pits. How come, the hair just started growing there... Am I dreaming? Did I go to bed and I don't remember?

I look at the computer screen to check the clock, and it says 01:54, last time I checked it was 11:53. How long was I reflecting about the mirror and thinking about my dad?

Then suddenly I remember, I mean not suddenly but, you know suddenly I've decided to check the date and it says 30/01/2021. It's my great granddad's birthday. Unfortunately, I didn't meet him, he was gone when I arrived. But my dad always told me that he was the only reason he could move to Australia to study and ended up meeting mom. Because when he died, he left $20,000 to my grandpa, and with this money, he paid for my dad's studies as an exchange student.

There are some stories about him in my dad's "moleskine". He used to call him "cabeça de bagre", which means the head of some type of fish. He said he never understood this nickname but he used to like it because sounded funny.

Anyway, it's 02:30 I'm getting hungry, I'm tired of seeing this graph on my dad's computer going up and down. My dad loves his job and it's cool that he doesn't need to work all the time like my friends' parents.

I realized that there's a picture of my mom on his board now, the same one that dad has in his wallet and a little piece of paper that says "I'm so happy. I now see myself rich, as an elite trader making at least 20k dollars a day investing in the stock market." I think this got something to do with his work, but I don't remember seeing this paper on my dad's board before or mom's picture.

I decide to go to the kitchen and I'm very sure that this isn't my home. My house definitely doesn't have three computers and televisions in the living room, only dad's gaming room. The bathroom isn't dirty and there's more than just bread, tomatoes, and mayo in our fridge. Well, I guess I'll just make a sandwich with two pieces of toast with mayo on both and four slices of tomato, dad's favourite.

When I go back to the bedroom I realize that was dad's bedroom from the stories he told me. I take a look around and I'm so fascinated with the details that are coming back to me from my memories. His golden suitcase located near his TV, the messy mattress on the ground, mom's coconut oil on the bedside table, and dad's "Moleskine".

What? How come the moleskine's pages all blank?... As I finish saying my statement, the mirror lights shine bright like never before.

I approach the mirror and I see dad instead of my reflection, I smile at him but he seems very focused on something else like he is inside his head thinking. It feels like we've know each other for such a long time even though he looks younger.

Hey mirror bud, do you wanna hear about my theory? he asks... I don't know what to say so I just move my head agreeing with it. I was scared. Was I trapped inside the mirror? Would I be able to talk to my dad again? How come he wasn't recognizing me? So many questions in my mind and at the same time I was fascinated by how he was explaining to me how we look at the time in a certain way, but we completely ignore the speed and the velocity of things existing in that specific time, how fast our thoughts come and go, or conversations or people.

So I decided to start writing everything he was telling me in his little black book. It's 4:30 AM, my head starts falling down as I become sleepy.

Suddenly I wake up and I'm hugging my dad's mirror and my dad is carrying me to my bed, and before I have the chance to say anything he says. Good night son, I love you mirror bud.