The Mirror Version 2

Mark was a very nondescript young man, the kind so extraordinarily ordinary he managed to walk through life without anybody noticing him. If you were to ask for him, which no one did, you would be greeted with the vague, annoyed gestures of the person who knows something has slipped his mind: "Marcus… just one moment, I seem to recall…" only the person never did. If you were to walk past him in the street, you wouldn't even have noticed him as you accidentally bumped his briefcase and sent its contents fluttering onto the street.

This sort of thing happened a lot to Mark, who was as quietly, blandly unhappy as it was possible for a person to be. Every day he woke up at seven, commuted to work, came home to his messy apartment, stared at the TV while he had takeout and shuffled off to bed. No one paid him any heed as he came and went, and even when he paid the rent his landlord always looked at him with an expression of vague surprise, as if she had forgotten she had someone living in the boxy set of rooms above hers.

For all his outward unremarkablility Mark possessed his own passions deep within him, burning brightly yet utterly unperceivable by others. He wanted desperately to be noticed. And he was deeply, senselessly in love.

Her name was Amanda. She lit up his world. Whenever she came into the room, he couldn't take his eyes off her. Whenever she was out of it, he daydreamed about her endlessly. It was just as well his manager never checked up on his work aside from a very occasional "Hey Mick, how's it going?" which Mark always started to answer enthusiastically, forgetting the manager never stopped long enough to listen to his reply.

Mark had tried a number of ways to win her heart, none of them successful. He had attempted to write her poetry, which had started promisingly with Roses are red, violets are blue and ended in a variety of less appealing ways, such as I can't think about anything else please say you'll go out with me then we can take a drive to Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator in a little run down chapel and I'll take really good care of you forever and ever and make you happy even though my apartment has a weird smell and is kinda damp but you won't get sick, honest.

He was pretty sure 'honest' didn't rhyme with 'blue'.

He also sent her flowers, once. That hadn't turned out well either because the florist had simply forgot his order for her birthday, and after a large number of phone calls the roses turned up at her desk the following week. And that was when he realized he had forgotten to include a card with the bouquet.

The real problem, however, was that he simply lacked the guts to walk up to her and say, "Amanda, the roses were from me, although they don't compare to your beauty. Would you do me the honor of having dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Mark never realized that, and instead put all his energy into blaming his unnoticeability. If he made himself more noticeable, everything would magically fall into place. He would have friends. Amanda would go out with him. Life would be perfect.

First he bought books with titles like "10 Steps To A New You!" and "How To Realize Your Inner Star!" He took them home, devoured them, and the next Monday was ready to show the world a New Him. Walking into the office with what he hoped was a confident stride, but was at best a slightly awkward almost-run, he shoved his hand at the first colleague he met and flashed a huge, yellow smile.

"Good morning, Jim!" he declared in a voice that was more volume than self-assurance.

Jim made no attempt to rise from his seat. His eyes followed the hand under his nose to the person it belonged to. His brow knitted. "Good morning…?"

"Marcus," Mark supplied, ignoring his glasses, which were starting to slide down his nose, and holding onto his smile desperately.

"Ah, Parker. Knew that." And Jim went back to surfing porn.

Out went the self-help books in the trash the next day. Through with his inner star, Mark decided to work on his outer star. His coffee table was strewn with new magazines with titles like "10 Steps To An Amazing Body" and "How To Get The Perfect Physique!"

Fifteen minutes into his brand new gym membership Mark twisted a muscle he never knew he had and that was the end of that.

---

Today had been a particularly frustrating day for him. His manager had asked how he was thrice, each time looking very sincere, until Mark, despite his previous experiences, opened his mouth - and found his manager's attention magically diverted elsewhere. He had bumped into Amanda by the water cooler – literally. Water splashed over her jacket and she had given him a look of such unmitigated hatred before storming off, he swore he felt his nether regions shrink. On leaving work his suitcase had been knocked out of his hands – twice – first by a harassed-looking woman with a toddler, the second by a couple of punks with bright green hair. As Mark was scooping his papers up for the second time a businessman talking loudly on his handphone kicked his briefcase away, overturning it and scattering white sheets hopelessly. Mark stood and screamed incoherently at the man before grabbing his case and flinging it at him. He missed. The man didn't even pause in his conversation or look back.

The rent was due, and even though something in him rebelled at paying it on time – maybe he secretly wanted the landlord to come knocking on the door, just to prove to himself that someone knew he existed – he found himself ringing her doorbell. She opened her door and looked at him with hazy astonishment that had nothing to do with his disheveled appearance or the lack of his briefcase; it was the same look she always gave him. Mark handed her his rent wordlessly and even before he finished turning away, the door was already shut.

He let himself into his apartment, kicked at the door to shut it, went straight to his bathroom and turned on the tap. There was a mirror over the sink, cracked and dotted with age. He wet his hand aimlessly under the running water as he stared at his reflection, furious. His reflection stared back, as scary as a limp sock.

The most notable thing about his features were how bland they were. He looked the precise definition of common, and a rather mussed one at that. No one ever noticed the Joes and Johns of the world. They noticed the dashing, swashbucking, romantic Romeos and Ronaldos.

"It's all your fault!" he told it angrily, and then because he was angry and all the angry manly men in movies seemed to do it, he punched the mirror. "OUCH!"

The mirror remained mirrorlike, but his hand now hurt. Shaking it and cursing plaintively and rather unimaginatively, he leaned in again for a closer look. Maybe if he had plastic surgery. Or maybe if he let his hair grow long and dyed it black…

The face within the mirror was suddenly not his own. "Boo," it said.

Mark let out a shrill yelp and stumbled back. The back of his legs caught against the bathtub, and stars swam briefly across his vision as his head met the shower wall abruptly. "Oooh," he muttered hazily, the darkness reminding him of 6.59am just before his alarm rang – was it time to get up and go to work yet? Was his bad day just a horrible dream? – but when his sight cleared he was still in the bathroom, in his bathtub, and there was a Face looking down at him from the mirror.

It was not a very nice Face, although it was grinning with what might be construed as amusement. It certainly did not pass as human, nor did it look as if it had ever bothered to try. Mark rubbed his eyes because it seemed like the sensible thing to do and wondered if Amanda could love a madman.

"Not very likely," the Face said.

"I beg your pardon?" Mark inquired, astonished and even more concerned for his mental health.

The Face looked exasperated. "I can read your mind. I know your darkest fears and deepest desires, blah blah blah. Let's cut straight to the chase." It grinned again, displaying very sharp teeth. "I can make your wish come true."

"And what do you want in return?" Mark demanded, regaining his wits and his footing. "My soul?"

Astonishment registered on the Face. "What on earth for?"

"To… eat?" Mark ventured hesitantly, not sure if he should be giving it ideas.

"What, raw, bound to a bed of sticky rice with seaweed? I've never subscribed to that whole healthy Japanese food fad that's going on down there at the moment. Cold intestine-noodles. Green tea." Its nose wrinkled. "Pooh. Disgusting."

"All right, then what do you want?"

"How about we talk later? When you've enjoyed the fruits of your wish for a little while, I'll let you choose."

Mark eyed it suspiciously. It eyed him in return.

"Don't just stand there dilly dallying," the Face said impatiently. "Do you want your wish, or not?"

"I guess," he said slowly.

"'You guess'? Did your mother give you testicles? Yes or no."

Mark looked at the Face, but instead of its rather horrific features he saw Amanda's pretty ones smiling at him. He saw his colleagues patting him on the back. He saw his manager actually listening to what he had to say. He saw the arrogant businessman of the day apologizing to him for knocking his briefcase away.

"Yes," he said, and he had never meant anything more.

"Done," said the Face, and made as if to leave. "You Will Be Noticed."

"Wait!" called Mark. "It won't be anything too drastic, will it? No people mobbing me outside my door, or scrutinizing my every movement and laughing each time I make the slightest mistake?"

"Young man," the Face said, looking very affronted, "it is my sincerest hope your wish will make you very, very happy."

Then it was really, truly, gone.

Mark was staring at his own reflection again. It looked much the same as before. Except for maybe an emerging pimple on the side of his nose.

Mark sighed, turned off the tap and went to bed. It had been a long day.

---

"Hey, Parker," Jim greeted nonchalantly as Mark stepped into the office.

Mark half-turned in disbelief. "Did you say something?"

"Parker. That's your name, yeah?" Jim looked pleased with himself. "I never forget a name."

"Y-yes," Mark stuttered, and made his way to his desk in a daze.

"Mick!" a different voice boomed. "There you are. How are you doing?"

Mark looked up at his manager, and for once the brown eyes didn't slide off him at the slightest distraction. He appeared to be waiting, quite patiently, for a reply.

"Extraordinarily well," Mark answered honestly.

But nothing compared to when Amanda made her way over to his desk at lunch, apologized for overreacting the previous day – "Hormones," she gave a little self-deprecating laugh, "you know how it is." Mark didn't, but he nodded anyway – and asked him if he were free for dinner that night.

Of course he was. He'd been waiting for that dinner for a very long time.

---

Two months later the bubble still hadn't burst. He was convinced he was living a dream, he was so happy, and so he wasn't exactly surprised to see the Face in the mirror one morning as he was knotting the new tie Amanda had just given him. "Hello," he greeted it as soon as he recovered from the shock of seeing his features warp and twist into something else. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

"Who gives a flying funnybone about the weather?" the Face snorted. "You've had a wonderful time traipsing about lately, haven't you?"

"Very much so, and it's all thanks to you."

"Great. Fantastic. Listen, I've come to collect."

Suddenly the cloud Mark was walking on dissipated. He crashed back to reality. "Have you?" he asked, throat suddenly dry.

"I'm a lenient creature, I'll still let you choose, never fear. Now, how do you feel about giving me your sense of beauty? You've been doing a lot of appreciating lately, I hear."

It leered convincingly. Mark shrank back in equal parts disgust and horror.

"No, no… to never be able to see Amanda the way I do now? It's too high a price."

"Remember what I gave you, young man. It's a priceless gift, it is, and it has brought you much. How about your tenacity? The delightful part of you that kept on trying to get noticed, even when nothing short of otherworldly intervention could help you?"

Mark doubted he had a lot of tenacity and said so, but the Face had been accurate in his last example and Mark would be even less of a man if he gave it up.

"Then," the Face said, quite exasperated, "what about the light in your eye? The one right there?"

Mark blinked and peered into a part of the mirror that was still mirror, right by the Face's chin. The Face was right; his eyes gleamed in a way they hadn't at their previous meeting.

"But..." Mark began, only to be interrupted by the Face.

"If it wasn't there before, you won't miss it, will you?" it pointed out reasonably. "And you do owe me payment. For an amazing gift that made you so, so much happier, and put that light there."

"Are you sure," Mark tried again.

"I think it's an excellent bargain," the Face assured him.

Mark looked at himself. Then he looked at the Face. "Okay," he said.

The Face smiled a smile that seemed to split it into two. "Done."

Then there was a whirling about him, and a sudden pain in his eyes, and Mark shut them instinctively as he gripped the sink tightly. When he opened them again, his world was blurry and his eyes were stinging. He thought he heard the faintest trace of a howl, furious and unearthly, coming from somewhere behind the mirror.

Slowly Mark opened the bathroom cabinet and fumbled for his glasses. He'd stopped wearing them a short while ago; Amanda, not content with changing the contents of his wardrobe, had insisted that he get rid of those awful frames. He stared at the mirror contemplatively.

"I wonder," he said, "what the Face wanted with a pair of contact lenses."