The Reflection Laughed
By Starr Hardgrove

He had just come home from a very long day. He sat down at his favorite chair at his makeup table and began to wash the clown white makeup from his face. The colors that he had placed around his lips and eyes came off with a single wipe, revealing the dark and pale complexion of a man who was at the end of his rope. The wrinkles were getting harder and harder to hide. As he looked into the mirror that he had looked into a million times, he seemed to see something that he hadn’t seen before. The reflection was a bit off in the the mirror that he was currently staring into. He didn’t register it at first but when he saw it, he thought it might have been a trick of the way that it hung on the wall behind him. He dismissed it and continued to take off his makeup. By the time he was completely clean and clear of what he had done, he was in the bathroom, looking at himself in that mirror and washing his face off and then drying it with a towel. His routine after every application of makeup was to apply a moisturizing lotion to his skin. It seemed that his hands didn’t quite line up with what he was seeing and what he was doing in the mirror. He thought that maybe this might be a trick of the mind and also might just be that he was extremely tired. The mind tends to play tricks on you when you haven’t been taking care of yourself, and for him, he had definitely not been taking care of himself lately. He sat in his chair with something to eat and drink and finally let go and decided to rest. He turned on the television and began to watch a nature show on television. He sat in his robe and relaxed. He could hear laughing coming from the room next to him. Did he hear that? When you live alone and you are by yourself, you hear all kinds of sounds that can be anything from a creak to a settling of the wood of your place and your mind tells you that they are something else. He told himself at that moment that the sound that he heard was an actual laugh, but it couldn’t be. It had to be something else. He went in to the makeup table to investigate. As he peered around the corner, the laughing grew louder. He saw his reflection in the mirror. But the problem was, at that time, he wasn’t in front of the mirror. He sat down at the table and the reflection began to sync up with his. But it wasn’t fully in sync. In fact, it had a mind of it’s own.

“Hello, Jacob.” the reflection said to him.

“What?” Jacob replied.

“Don’t you recognize me Jacob? I’m you.” the reflection replied.

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand. This doesn’t seem right!” Jacob said.

“It’s not right, Jacob. You are losing it. Gone fishing! You’ve checked out of sane town.” the reflection taunted at him.
Jacob stepped out of the line of the mirror. This couldn’t be. Was he talking to himself? Had he actually cracked? As soon as he stepped out of the mirror, Jacob could hear the laughing and giggling continue. It was a slight chuckle as if someone had told themselves a joke. Jacob didn’t think this joke was funny.

Jacob went into the bathroom to control himself. When he washed the water off of his face, he saw that the reflection was staring back at him as if to try and figure out what he was doing. This wasn’t just any reflection, it was the clown version of Jacob doing exactly what he was doing while he was doing it, but the words did not match up with what Jacob was saying. In fact, they didn’t match up at all.

“Jacob, can we talk?” the reflection asked. 

“What do you want?” Jacob said.

“I want to talk to you. We’re not well, Jacob. We’re not well at all.” the reflection said to him.

“What do you mean I’m not well? I’m tired, but nothing a little rest can’t cure.” Jacob said nervously. 

“Jacob, listen to me. Call me your conscience trying to tell you something! And that something is that you really and truly need to check in with you...me...you.” the reflection condescended.

“I must be dreaming. I fell asleep in my chair. I just need to wake up and get in touch with me.” Jacob calmed himself.
“You’re not sleeping! In fact, you’re very awake. You’re probably more alive than you have ever been in your life.” the reflection said.

“What makes you say that? What makes you so sure?” Jacob said.

“Because, you’ve self-actualized, my friend. Things that always thought you were going to do, you’ve actually done them. You’ve followed through! I’m very proud of you and what you’ve accomplished.” the reflection said.
Jacob walked away. The laughing continued. He walked into the kitchen where he felt that maybe, just maybe, if he got something to drink and calmed himself for a second, then he would be able to truly lose this conversation. He poured himself some whiskey in a tumbler and began to drink. He saw his reflection in his microwave and the reflection was laughing at him. It was the clown reflection again.

“You didn’t think that you were going to get away from me that easy did you?” the reflection replied.

Jacob jumped and dropped the glass. It shattered on the floor underneath him. He backed up only to hear the laughing that was there again. The laughing intensified. He was careful to walk in the kitchen with shattered glass underneath him, but he did anyway. He looked at the glass shards and began to see the reflection again. His laughing unwelcome guest. He dropped the pieces of glass and decided to stop looking at them. He walked into the living room and sat down and turned off the television. The glass of the television was directly in front of him, as was the reflection of the clown once again. He saw the clown leaning forward trying to get his attention and this was the first time that he was tapping the glass.

“What do you want?” Jacob said exasperatedly. 

“The answer to that one is easy! I want to tell you how proud I am that you finally did it!” the reflection replied.

“Did what?” Jacob questioned.

“You followed through! You finally showed those little brats what they were missing.” the reflection replied.

Jacob suddenly started to have a very queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have used a blunt object like the baseball bat that you had but it did the job.” the reflection said.

“What are you talking about?” Jacob said.

“You killed them, Jacob. You killed every one of them. Every one of the little brats. You really showed them who was boss, Jacob.” the reflection said.

“What are you saying? I haven’t killed anyone!” Jacob replied.

“But you will, you will, Jacob. And it will be glorious.” the reflection said.

Jacob backed up. He would never ever think of harming another living being, and he couldn’t ever think of harming a child. Entertaining children was his life. It was his livelihood. After all, he was a birthday clown and he believed that you should do no harm to anyone. He had just come from a birthday party when he made it home today. The kids were happy and enjoyed themselves very much.

“You forget that I know what you think and I’m inside your head.” the reflection replied.

Jacob thought for a moment about what happened at the last party.

“You don’t remember what happened do you?” the reflection said.

“No, I don’t.” Jacob replied.

“You killed them all, Jakey! You killed them all.” the reflection cried back.

He remembered it as such a happy event. Could this be true? Could it be that he harmed a child at the last birthday that he went to? He didn’t want to think that this was the case, but he at the time between going to bed and relaxing in his chair was having a very hard time putting together the events of today’s party!

“You can’t remember. YOU don’t want to remember.” the reflection said.

“Shut up! I’m trying to think.” Jacob replied.

He thought to himself about what had happened. He couldn’t remember. He thought as hard as he could. 

“The only respectable thing to do is to go to the police, Jacob! You’ve got to confess! You’ve got to make things right!” the reflection replied.

“I want to to shut up now! If you don’t shut up, I’m going to shut you up!” Jacob said!

The reflection laughed, “What are you going to do? Get me out of your head? What a laugh! I didn’t know that you were that funny, but you’ve really showed me a thing or two tonight.”

“Be quiet!” Jacob threw a shoe at the mirror and it shattered into pieces.

The reflection and the laugh stopped. For exactly two minutes and then began to laugh again. Jacob knew what he had to do. He started to smash every reflective surface in his house. Vases, mirrors, appliances, windows, televisions and anything else that was shiny. He covered it up with tape or blankets. He thought that if he couldn’t beat the clown, maybe he could make it to where he couldn’t communicate with him. After he was done smashing everything in the house, he sat in the middle of his floor and began to laugh. Uncontrollable laughing came from him and then he started to hear more uncontrollable laughing coming from the picture frame on the mantle of his living room. It was a picture of his wife. She looked as lovely as the first day they had met and it was hard for Jacob to look at that picture. That being the only thing he had left of her. He blurred his eyes, and saw the reflection again, staring at him through the picture of his wife.

“You can’t smash me away, Jacob. You can try, but there will always be a mirror to reflect what you’ve done. What you’ve become. It’s quite sick actually to those who don’t understand it. But we understand each other. We know that you really had no other choice! It’s what you had to do.” the reflection said to him.

“No, it can’t be. I don’t remember it. And if I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen.” Jacob said as he took the picture of his wife out of the frame and smashed it on the wall.

The reflection stopped laughing that very minute. Jacob had to verify what he had done. Even though he didn’t remember it, he very possibly thought he may have done what the reflection said he did. Even though it was 3am in the morning, he looked through his booking list to find the mother of the child. He called her even though he knew she was most likely asleep.

The phone rang.

The phone rang again.

Finally, an answering machine picked up with a female voice on the recording.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Davidson’s residence. We are unable to get to the phone right now, but leave a name and number and we’ll get back with you.” The beep sounded. Jacob said, “Hello, Mrs. Davidson, I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I think something very strange has happened at the birthday party today...”. 

Just then, a very tired Mrs. Davidson picked up the phone. “Hello...”

“Mrs. Davidson...I’m so glad you are there. I am so sorry to call, but the party didn’t go so well, I believe.” Jacob said.

“Jacob, thanks for calling. The party is tomorrow. You’re still going to be there, right. We are so excited that you’re going to give Tim his new baseball bat. He’s really been looking forward to this day. You come highly recommended and we are so glad we got to book you when we did.” Mrs. Davidson said.

“Thanks, I’m really excited about it as well. Bye.” Jacob ended the conversation.

The laughing resumed in the background as Jacob quietly walked to his chair, sat down and began to read a book, surrounded by no reflections, and completely alone. He realized that the laughing would always be there, but he had the choice not to listen to it.