• He checked his watch absent-mindedly, more out of habit than out of a deadline. He had been waiting for the rain clouds to vacate the area beneath the night sky. Upon leaving his comfortably lit apartment building, two night skies greeted him. One above him, in the space now completely void of obtrusions, and one smeared in front of him. The latter was the result of the horrendous downpour now deceased, and in the blurry duplicate of the skyline, stars and occupied rooms were difficult to distinguish. With his precautionary propped umbrella stowed, the man set forth. With only a loose destination, he takes his time, enjoying both skylines. A cloudy reflection of himself walks below his feet with purpose and confidence. Rounding a street corner, the man treads slowly through an enormous puddle, and watches individual water droplets race down windows in an effort to overcome each other. Soon after, the dark shadow of a man glides over the surface of the murky puddle in the corner of the man’s vision. Looking up, no one is around to generate this reflection. With shock, the man realizes that the other, invisible man, looks identical to himself. This other man was clearly given a tight schedule as he is surging past the man holding his trench coat tight around him and a bowler hat pulled down over his eyes. As he moves further sharp, jagged walls dissolve in to existence. Towering black roots, spotted with flecks of life sprout from the bases of the grey buildings surrounding the man. He is now following his reflection through an inverted maze of black walls and glowing green lights.

    Shadowing his own reflection, the man enters a darkened alley. Both sides of the wet ground are cast in dark pools of nonexistent light. Straightening his tie, the reflection knocks on a glass door. Muffled words rise through the floor beneath the man’s feet while he watches himself wait. For one instant the reflection glances down to check his wet shoes and notices a copy of itself staring straight at it. This doppelganger appears to be following him of its own free will, and not by the concepts of reflection. In a moment of panic he raises a shadow-swollen fist and brings it rushing to meet the surface of the gloomy puddles. The image beneath his feet shatters as though it were a mirror flung at a wall in shear horror of what was discovered.