In first or second grade, I came up with a
fantasy about reflections and mirrors. It developed further throughout
elementary school, but first came about when I was around seven. I imagined
that everyone's reflection is an alternate version of themselves from a
parallel world we see via the mirror—that everything in a reflection was really
in that other place. And a reflection shows a reverse image because everything
over there is the opposite of the way it is here, including ourselves. I
decided every person had a polar twin, and their names were our names spelled
backwards. Mine was Ylime (pronounced E-lime). These counterparts were
necessary in order to understand ourselves because if we knew what we were not,
than we'd know what we were. Windows and water surfaces were weaker portals
into Opposite Land, because you only caught a partial view.
I'd sometimes study my reflection, watching to
see if it blinked when I didn't blink or slipped up and moved in a different
way. When there was a crack in a mirror, I'd pretend it was the Opposite People
trying to break through from the other side. Part of me wanted to meet them,
but I was unsure whether or not they could be trusted. When I did something I
wouldn't normally do, I imagined it was Ylime influencing me. I thought the
Opposite Peoples' goal was to come through and replace us because they hated
being constrained to a life of copying our every move. They wanted autonomy.
Whenever I had to turn around, I'd turn clockwise, because I feared that
spinning counterclockwise would land me in the world behind the mirror and I
would become my reflection instead of the "real me." If that
happened, we would switch places and I'd become trapped.
At the same time, I wondered if the people in this world
were really the reflections, and what we believed to be our mirror images were
the original source. What if we were the ones trapped behind the mirror and
didn't know it? What if truth and reality was the opposite of all we believed,
because this was actually Opposite Land? How could anyone be sure?
When a mirror broke, I'd imagine what it would
be like to step out into the other side and see everything for the way it was.
And for a moment, I'd wonder whether that might be the way to freedom.
