Every Saturday I wake up early. Much earlier than the rest of the neighborhood. Once it gets past 10:00 AM, especially during the warmer spring & summer months, the neighborhood gets packed and busy. It starts to feel like you’re right in the heart of Times Square, Manhattan. It’s disgusting.
My early morning walks around the neighborhood are not only a dedicated time to get my 10,000+ steps in for the day—they have become a time of quiet reflection and meditation. If I don’t get a chance to complete my walk, it sets off the entire next week on a sour note. We can’t have that.
I’ve been doing this same walk for years. Or at least it feels like it. I have the entire route down to a science. I know exactly how long it takes to complete. Two hours and twenty-five minutes. No more, no less. If I deviate from this, I won’t know who I am.
As the loop of the route nears its end—somewhere around the two hour and thirteen minute mark—I come across a driveway. The driveway. For all intents and purposes, it’s not that remarkable. But no matter what I’m thinking about during the walk, or how I try to distract myself as I approach the block it sits on, I can’t help but stop and stare.
The driveway is blocked off on each side by large gray walls that increase in size from the street back towards the house. Or what I think is a house. I’m actually not sure where it leads to. I stand directly at the entrance of it, staring straight down, and all I see is a mirror. The garden wall at the end of the drive, before it curves to somewhere, hangs a solitary circular mirror. It demands to be noticed.
I’m still standing here, staring it down. I’m looking right into it. Even though I am relatively far away, I feel like I see something. Something that shouldn’t be there. A figure? A shadow? Instead of a small reflection of myself, wearing a white teeshirt and blue shorts, all I can make out is a soft, gray blur. And, actually, it’s not even in the position of where I’m standing. It seems slightly off. I’m not sure how.
I blink a few times and then suddenly it appears to be normal. Am I losing my mind? Maybe I’m just dehydrated. We’re at that point in summer where, with the humidity, it’s feeling like 90 degrees even though it’s only 8:00 AM. Perhaps I need to start bringing a water bottle on these walks. I shrug it off and finish the short walk back to the apartment.
***
For the next few weeks, it all happened exactly the same. The starting route, the heat beating down on me, the draw towards this unassuming driveway. After a few encounters, I decided to walk an extra block further, hoping to skip it altogether. That didn’t seem to work. No matter how I tried to position myself, whenever I got to the two hour and thirteen minute mark of the walk, I found myself directly at the end of this driveway. How is that possible?
I used to walk different routes and avoid it. I think. There was one route with a blue mural, once. Or maybe I dreamed that.
Each time, I found myself returning here, staring in a daze down the long corridor to that mirror. I felt like I was in a trance. All sounds from the neighborhood went quiet. No birds. No cars. No murmurs of others walking their pets or children on a morning stroll. It was just me and this mirror. The silence was deafening.
After awhile, a car alarm would blare in my right ear. It didn’t matter if a car was actually parked nearby on the street or not. This ring would hit me, loud as hell, shaking me out of the trance. Or whatever the hell was going on. I couldn’t figure it out. Each week, I’d find myself back here. Fading out and then being aggressively snapped back to reality. Or what I thought was reality.
***
Eventually everything became an increasing blur. Work, friends, home—I had no details of the day-to-day that stuck with me. Saturday would come, I’d take my walk, I’d lose track of time, and then it was Saturday again. Something was pulling me. Dragging me along.
At some point, I suddenly remember feeling the urge to walk towards the mirror. My breaths were picking up pace as I took one unsteady step after the other, like a slow crawl, directly to this shiny metal object. The image reflecting back to me was the same as I had seen before. Not a perfect image of myself, but more a gray blur; fuzzy and scrambling around the whole of the mirror. It was like looking into one of those spinning circular illusions—the longer I looked, the more everything in my vision started to fray around the edges. The world disappeared behind me.
Standing less than a foot away now, my head tilted toward the right. I was curious and perplexed. What the hell was going on? What was I looking at? Before I even realized it was happening, my arm began to extend towards it. I wanted to touch it. I needed to feel it. Was this a mirror, after all?
I noticed that I couldn’t see a reflection of my arm being pulled towards the glass. In fact, the mirror was not reflecting at all at this point. It was rippling, like a small wave in a pond. My finger inched towards it, approaching the threshold of its sheen. As it landed on the rippling silver, a bright white flash took over me and it suddenly felt like I was grabbed and rapidly being pushed through a tunnel—like one of those carnival rides where lights are streaking by, giving an illusion of traveling by light speed.
My memory seemed to go blank here. I don’t know what happened.
***
I suddenly woke up in bed and rolled over to the clock. It read 6:30 AM. I groggily reached for my phone on the night stand. It was dead. I fumbled around for the charger cord, locating it and plugging it into the phone in a smooth motion. I waited a minute and eventually the screen lit up. I pulled the phone to my face and read the date: Saturday, July13th, 2024. Huh.
Is it really Saturday again? What happened this last week?
Before I could even mull on that for long, I robotically rose out of bed and started getting myself dressed for another walk. If nothing else makes sense, at least I have my routine. I quickly tied up my shoelaces, grabbed my house keys and sunglasses, and set out to get in another 10,000 steps.
I’m about halfway through my walk when I notice something strange. A figure turns the corner ahead of me.
At first I don’t think much of it—it’s early, and a few other people are usually out by now. But there’s something familiar in the way he walks. The bounce of his step. The way he wipes sweat from his brow at exactly the same spot on the route where I always do.
As I round the next block, I see him again. Except this time, he’s not ahead of me. He’s behind me. Across the street. Same clothes. Same sunglasses. We lock eyes for a second. Or at least, I think we do. Then he looks away and keeps walking.
I quicken my pace and try to shake it off. Maybe it’s just in my head.
But then I pass another one. Leaning against a stop sign, catching his breath.
And then a fourth. Standing at a storefront window, looking in. I’m surrounded by myself, all walking variations of this same route, like wind-up toys set to repeat.
When I finally reach the two hour and thirteen minute mark, the driveway is waiting. I walk toward it. Slowly. Deliberately.
The walls feel taller than before, like they’ve been growing each week, feeding off my visits. The air is heavy and still. I move toward the end of the driveway and I freeze.
I see him.
I see me.
Another version of me, standing less than a foot from the mirror. His hand reaching out, just like mine did. He’s frozen in that moment of decision. Just barely touching the glass.
He doesn’t see me yet. But I see everything. The ripple in the mirror. The faint shimmer around the edges. A thousand other drives hidden in its curve.
I open my mouth to call out but nothing comes. I want to stop him. I want to stop me.
But before I can move, he touches it.
A flash.
He’s gone.
And suddenly, I’m waking up in bed again.
Saturday. 6:30 AM.
The heat already unbearable.
I tighten my shoelaces. Adjust my sunglasses. It’s time to start my walk. I’ve got to get my 10,000 steps in. I glance at my watch. Two hours and thirteen minutes to go.
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