Chapter 9

Faces are just floating up in front of me, and I can feel their physicality pushing me back, even though they are only two dimensional flickers of light. As soon as one comes to pour its criticisms and floats on up, the next comes, a relentless tirade of criticisms from faces that I both recognise and do not. Then there is this need to push a button. I move my hands around my head, finding the button and stopping the sound, wondering at what point it got next to my head. But the faces are gone. Something vague goes through my head, about having to wait a year before having to worry again, but that worry is dispelled only a few long moments later. Something is talking to me. I cannot make out the words, but it is talking to me. Another sound kicks in, and a conversation is started. I am lost, knowing that important things are being said here, but not knowing what.

That is until there is a heavy banging on the door. “Crunchy, turn off those fucking alarm clocks!”

I spring awake, racing to the alarm clock across the room, the second voice in the conversation, then go back to my bed to find my mobile phone ringing away underneath my pillow. It’s been going off for at least half an hour, no doubt with me putting it on snooze every five minutes. I must have done at least once, as last night I deliberately placed the phone next to the other alarm clock, yet I have no recollection of retrieving it this morning and putting it on my bed. 

I forget about it as the phone under my pillow is a fairly standard normal waking procedure of mine. I find my clothes strewn across the floor from the night before and put them on, patting down the creases, intending to get downstairs and make myself some tea as quickly as possible. I walk up to the mirror, to straighten up my tie, and it starts all over again. 

I look at myself, a hero from yesterday reduced to just the bitch of Hemmingway and Mitsuko, running around at their every beck and call. I should just have ignored their demand to turn off my alarm clock and just slept in. But instead I jumped at the chance to obey them. 

No. I know what is happening here. I try to pull my gaze away, walk away from the mirror, but I can’t. In truth, I’m not really trying hard. I am once again under the mirror’s control, but this time, it feels different, as I am not being asked to hate myself, or even to love myself. I can just see myself clearly, as any mirror should be able to do. 

The mirror holds out its hand, independent of myself. Automatically I go to reciprocate the gesture, but I understand that I don’t have to. The reflection does not have that much control over me. I have the upper hand, and as if proving myself right, the reflection looks slightly disconcerted, obviously trying not to show too much weakness. I know that I don’t have to reach out, but there is a slight urging that I should. Curious, I hold my hand out just as the reflection has done, reaching towards the glass of the mirror. And then my hand is grasped, my fingers interconnecting with the reflection’s and I can’t pull my hand away. The more I try to release myself, the more the reflection tries to pull me into the mirror. I pull back harder, as does he, our strength continually matching each other, until we both have our feet supported against the door, leaning back with all of our might. 

Suddenly, I’m falling back, the weight from the other side of the mirror having vanished. As I fall back I think that I have won, that I have not been pulled into the mirror; that is until I see myself lying next to me on the floor, this side of the mirror. Then I know that I have been duped, that the reflection deliberately stopped pulling so that I could pull him out of the mirror, that he never once tried to pull me into the mirror. 

We both get up, That is, I get up, and he does in the same way, still nothing more than a reflection, but I wonder how long this is going to last. I also wonder if this when I am going to get killed, that all the others never committed suicide as the reflection comes out and kills them before going back into the mirror instead. Is this it? Is my time really up? 

And once again, I don’t panic. I stay calm. What is it about me that has heart attacks upon talking to strangers, when asked to do simple tests that any monkey could do, but stays so calm when the stakes are really so dangerous? Do I just have a death-wish? That instead of fearing the moment of death, I’m actually looking forward to it? 

Now is not the time for such thoughts. Just stay calm and find out as much as I possibly can. Maybe if I delay long enough Mitsuko or Hemmingway will come in and… NO! They must not be involved. This is up to me, and me alone. This is my battle, not theirs. I can’t help but notice a smile forming upon the reflection’s face as those thoughts pass through my head, but I don’t see any reason why he should know what I am thinking. We may share light waves, but I can’t believe we share brain waves. 

“Who are you?” I ask, but its reply is so instant that it actually overlaps my own words.

“Bateman.”

I pause for a second to take in these facts and rewind a little to work out what he said. Bateman. I had an imaginary friend called Bateman once. We parted ways when he tried to kill me. We were about six, then. Someone that I haven’t thought about for a long time. I wonder if this Bateman knows about the old Bateman. Right now, I don’t think it’s a relevant enough detail to dwell on.

“What’s happening?”

“Come with me.”

This time, being more aware, I am able to take in the details. Having spoken slower and more pronounced with my mouth, I can see that the movements of his mouth clearly repeat the movements of my own, even if the words are vastly different. For a moment, I also believe that he is able to anticipate my questions, answering them as I ask them, as he did with his name, but that last answer was not an answer. It was a statement, not entirely relevant to me wanting to know what is going on. I can be fairly certain, now, that that is not an evil version of me that stands before me, merely an independent mind inside of my reflection. This is a crucial piece of knowledge if it is accurate, and if I can work out how to use it to my advantage. 

But Bateman wants me to go with him. I don’t know what this means, but I don’t want to show this level of ignorance. I hesitate, trying to work out what to say before the obvious question comes to me.

“Why?”

“Come.”

Again, he hasn’t answered my question. I know that there is the potential of danger, but he has not got the level of control over me that he had before, making me feel much more secure. Once again, this is not something that I am being forced to do, that I have complete freedom of choice. But once again there is this nagging urging that I really should find out where it is that Bateman wants to take me. I can stop this any time that I want.

“Okay.”

“Good.”

I can’t help but notice this time that Bateman really has anticipated what I was going to say, casting doubt about my earlier assumption that this is an independent mind. And that is when I see them, Hemmingway and Mitsuko. I am momentarily enraged, partly that they should not have entered my room, mostly about the fact that my connection to Bateman has been revealed, and that they will now take over. But this is when I realise that they are only in the mirror. I haven’t been taken anywhere, but very concerned that Bateman is still so powerful where his domain is concerned, and that he has brought it here, to confront me. 

I turn round to face the mirror properly, Bateman’s actions reflecting mine mean that he is not in the best position. He moves, forcing me to, and we battle for positions until we are both positioned relatively comfortably in front of the mirror. It also comes to my attention that this is the first time I have taken my gaze off Bateman’s eyes for the first time since I caught sight of him in the mirror. I wonder if this means anything. But before I come up with anything, the reflection of Mitsuko speaks to me. 

“You really are quite a dweeb, aren’t you?”

I go to respond, but I don’t know how to reply. The deep inner shame that lives within me gets the better of me, overriding any ability to answer back and tells me to shut up and just listen to what she has to say. Bateman, however, does not have such restraints and is able to answer back in my place.

“Shut up.”

And as he says that, I feel his indignation, his sense of justice that has been stripped away by her words restored through this righteousness. It is not anger that I feel from him, but self-belief. And it feels good. Once again, my body is flooded with chemicals, my heart starts beating faster, even though it is not me that is standing up to her, but my body does not seem to have grasped this. 

“No. You have fucked up our mission, got in the way. You have disobeyed orders, left your post and threatened to kill two agents. We have you under house arrest, yet you seem blindly to ignore that.”

My immediate reaction is of betrayal, that despite all the efforts I’ve gone through to gain so much as an atom of her respect, to gain the privileges that a normal person would take so much for granted that they would sneer at them if offered as an alternative to the ones they hold, she should go against her word. But once again, a sense of righteousness surges through me, a need to set the record straight, but once again this comes from Bateman, once again it is he that takes the initiative as my battle with my shame still resides somewhere underneath Bateman’s feelings.

“I am better than you. I am here for a reason. To help you out. Were you brilliant at your job the instant you started? No. You had time to improve your abilities. You were trained. This is what you are supposed to be doing with me. I can be brilliant. You just have to give me my chances.”

“Okay then.”

And just like that, Mitsuko is defeated, I have…, no, Bateman, sorry, has proved his point. Pride is restored, self respect is back and justice has been awarded. It was that easy, it was always that easy, but now I am becoming particularly aware of our two conflicting sets of emotions. I almost want to break out into laughter, overwhelmed at the absurdity of ease with which it was all done, bemused at just how much I have held myself back all these years, and the uselessness and stupidity of having done so. I feel as if a whole new world has suddenly been revealed to me, and amazingly, one in which I have a V.I.P. pass into. Bateman, however, has just taken it in his stride. The whole episode has meant little to him. A minor challenge was presented, to which he overcame it with little difficulty. He is calm, a minor sense of satisfaction but he knows he is better than that without being patronising or arrogant. 

He allows me to compare and contrast these two self images before stepping back into the mirror. With him goes his emotions, leaving me empty. My V.I.P. pass now comes laden with shame, that something so simple, so natural, had to be shown to me. I feel like a four year old, trapped in the body of a twenty five year old, as that is the amount that I have learnt of life and dealings with other people. I’m in the deep end of the pool of life, with those inflatable arm bands, and an inflatable ring with a horses head, no wonder people have such an urge to thrust my head under the water and keep t it held down there. I allow myself to be intimidated by others, and as a result, they are disgusted by me for being so weak. I push out the inner bully in every one, because I deserve to be punished, I deserve to be taught a lesson. They want me to fight back, because in a warped, twisted way, they want to be able to respect me, or at least put up with me. 

I allow all of this. 

All of it.

I don’t want it, yet I demand it.

I demand to be bullied.

The ultimate victim.

I look to the mirror, Bateman, as expected, is looking back at me. But I can’t just look at him, I need to talk, to say something to cover the horrible silence, to deviate his thoughts for just a moment or two. “It isn’t that easy, is it?” is the feeble sentence I come out with. 

I’m not even looking at the mirror now. Bateman probably nodded his reply, or some kind of light would have flashed in his eyes, or some kind of pitying response that would suggest ‘yes, it is’, but I moved my eyes away as soon as I opened my mouth, because I do not want that answer. I do not want that verification that I am such a dweeb. 

Whereas a moment ago I wanted to laugh, now I am holding back the tears. To cry in front of Bateman, myself, my alter ego, would be the final indignity. That is when I know I have lost. Whereas a better person than I would accept my tears as me finally letting go, reaching rock bottom to begin the long crawl back up, because up is the only direction and horizontal is an absolute impossibility, I regard the tears that I am holding back as a weakness because it would show me to be a weak person. Because my realisation did not come from me, it was forced upon me from someone else and I do not want anyone to believe that I could not have achieved it on my own. 

And I want to hate this thing that looks at me, that I look at in the mirror for a multitude of reasons. Because it is better than me. Because it is not me, and because it is me. Because it shows me to be who I am, because it shows me who I want to be. It is everything that I am, and everything that I am not. I hate it, because I have to hate it. And I lash out. There is no connection of fists, no response at all from the mirror, nothing but a shattering of glass, and even this does not stop me as I search around the room for anything to throw at it, to destroy it. I find my pillows, my bag. And for all the good that they do not do, I still throw them at the door where the mirror was. But it doesn’t matter, because there is no stopping me until this much, at the very least, is done. 

Thirteen years bad luck? That is nothing compared to the life I have already.

And now I can calm down. I say calm down, because there is no way of describing the tension that has left me, the regret that the only way I have had to express what is inside me is through destruction. The bitterness inside me for succumbing to animal reactions, that dumb human pride/arrogance actually assuming that we are better than any animal. Was there not a more intelligent way of dealing with this? Could I not be that person that Bateman showed me that I could be? Could I not be any other human being? Could I damn well fucking be in control of my emotions for more than five seconds of my stupid, god-awful existence? Yes, existence, not life, because I cannot deny that I am on this earth, but I have no life. But I am empty of this anger, numbed by my release, relaxed of tension. I am as I have done. Not quite Descartes, but good enough. And if this is the closest thing to calm that I can attain, then so be it. 

I move over to start tidying up the damage, pulling the glass out of the pillows, hoping I’ve got it all. There is always a consequence. Always. And picking up the bigger pieces of glass is how I begin to deal with the most obvious and easily dealt with consequence. Most of the mirror is still in place. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t destroy the whole thing, just enough to cause major spider web cracks to form around the area that I punched, only the area most affected has actually fallen off the door, but enough to know that I am not going to be walking bare footed in this room for a long time. I do my best to ignore it, as a consequence it is continually in the periphery of my vision, with my complete concentration on it as I am looking down to the floor. Of course I can see the rest of the room in my mirror, fragmented, but still it is there. I am ignoring it, so it makes sense. I am focusing on ignoring the mirror itself, not what is within it, except for one thing, myself, or Bateman, as its become known. So I must be doing a good job of ignoring it that I do not see it, or myself in the mirror. 

It is only when I stand up, giving up on clearing away glass, that it strikes me that I actually am not in the mirror, and therefore, Bateman is not in the mirror. Have I killed him? I must have. I don’t stop to think about the implications of this, i.e., never being able to have a decent shave ever again, never being able to tell when acquaintances have written dirty words on my face whilst I sleep, I just need to tell someone. The best people being downstairs; Hemmingway and Mitsuko. 

I storm in on them, whilst they are still having their breakfast. “I’ve done it!” I announce, but neither share my enthusiasm, with Hemmingway shoving more corn flakes into his mouth before speaking. 

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” he sprays at me. 

“Get out, dweeb.”

“No, listen…” I begin, rather feebly, my inner shame telling me that despite the freedoms I have fought for, really I should not be here. But Mitsuko has moved toward me and is escorting me through the room and I’m not doing too much to resist her. Despite my shame, I can at least finish off my sentence, can’t I? Surely that’s allowed? “…I’ve killed it.”

“Killed what? A spider?” Hemmingway sprays at me once more. 

I realise that I’ve never told them about Bateman. But I’ve committed to this stream of thought, and if ever there was a time to tell them, now is that time as it is the way I wanted it to be. I have won my battle. The war between myself will continue, but I’ve won this battle, and done it without the help of the others. Less importantly, I have solved this case for them, not bad for a work experience lad on his third day, eh? I have reached the door, Mitsuko now having to push me, as I’ve extended my arms and am holding onto the doorframe. It’s time for me to open up, reveal a part of me that I’ve deliberately hidden. And, despite my victory, it’s still a difficult confession to make. I can’t face either of them as I say this, but funnily enough, with Mitsuko trying to push me out of the door, she is also pushing the words out of me. 

“The reflection. The one in the mirror. It goes by the name of Bateman.”

Mitsuko stops her pushing, even Hemmingway is currently not crunching or slamming his spoon into the bottom of his bowl. “That’s a pretty tall tale,” Mitsuko says. Well, I’ve at least managed to gain their attention, and with the minimum necessary explanation. 

“Come, I’ll show you.”

We head up to my room, with me leading the way. There is no interaction between us, and not wanting to look at either of them, I keep my gaze focused forward. I cannot help but feel that I am in command here, a right that I do not want right now, wishing instead that someone else will take this responsibility out of my hands. 

Another child steps out of Mitsuko’s room, different from the one that let me out of my room yesterday. I wonder where we are picking up all these kids from, and at what point he arrived here, until Mitsuko says “come with us, Fellini.” I do the maths, but there is a hole in the equation, and a variable that does not seem to fit, that being, who the hell was it that let me out of my room yesterday? I understand it is best not to ask as if I don’t know by now, I’m not going to, unless by chance. We go into my room, the four of us filing in, the other three looking around the room in bewilderment, no doubt at the words written on the walls.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” asks Hemmingway.

I close the door so that they can see the remains of the mirror.

“The reflection, it’s not here, look.”

“I can see that,” sneers Mitsuko. 

I can’t see any of them in the mirror as I am standing out of the way, therefore they can’t see me. I wonder if they can see themselves in the mirror, or if it has completely lost its power to reflect people. I move, and can quickly see Mitsuko and Bunuel’s reflections. But not mine. I stand in front of it to prove a point. My reflection is not there, Bateman is not there. The point quickly sinks in. 

“How did you kill it, Crunchy?”

“The mirror. I smashed it.”

They all turn their attention from me back to the mirror. Hemmingway’s brain is processing pretty fast, however. “Was it just in that one mirror?”

As soon as he says this, I see a flaw in the logic I have so far been working with. “No, I’ve seen it in others,” I concede, inwardly admitting defeat, my self-loathing taking stock of the situation and preparing an attack. I search around for options, both to present to Hemmingway and as a defence for the attack from my self-loathing, but I can’t find anything. 

“Then, it obviously does not exist in one mirror,” says Hemmingway, confirming the flaw. But he gives me a way out of embarrassment. “When you smashed it, I take it the reflection just disappeared? Died?”

I don’t want to concede total defeat by saying disappeared. “Died”, I reply.

“Then its strength is not extended across all mirrors. Purely in the one in which it appears.”

“That simple, eh?” says Mitsuko, puzzled. But I am inflating with pride. Hemmingway has come round to my logic, not criticising it, but supporting it. We are not talking about a matrix of mirrors here, where Bateman is able to dip in and out of any particular mirror at will, instead he occupies one, and only one mirror, that being the one that has caught my attention. By smashing that mirror, I am smashing his physical embodiment, in effect killing him. I have done it, after all. 

But I don’t need to explain all this to Mitsuko, it is enough for me that Hemmingway understands. So, in reply to her question, I just reply with a patronising “Yes”. This time it is deliberate, and I couldn’t care less. 

“Dweeb,” she announces with feeling and conviction, no doubt stung by my little attack towards her, frustrated that I have outsmarted her, 

My self-loathing raises its arm in support of a comrade, but my shame is nowhere to be found. Something kicks in, a need to fight back, and a sense of déjà vu comes over me. My pride has been attacked and my self confidence (where did that come from?) needs to defend itself.

“Hey! I saved your life here. You see, this was all I needed. The time to prove my abilities. To get some training. Yet all you did was treat me like shit. I’m the one who had to learn it all by myself. I can be brilliant and I will be brilliant! You’ve just got to give me my chances.”

I’ve not allowed myself to get angry, that would have admitted defeat. Instead, I feel exactly as Bateman did when he confronted Mitsuko in the mirror. In fact, I have both conflicting sets of emotions, Bateman’s and my own, but intensified, as this time, it was all done by myself. I have that pride, that sense of amazement, that  knowledge that it was necessary and routine. My shame for speaking out, disgust at myself for being criticised in the first place. Two people’s feelings in one body. Strange, very strange. 

And Mitsuko steps down. “Okay then.”

“Okay,” I confirm. It dawns on me that Bateman was trying to help me. I could not have got this far if Bateman hadn’t shown me how to deal with my emotions in this kind of situation. But I abused him, arrogantly believed that I could do it alone, that I didn’t need him, and killed him. I wonder if he tried to help the others, as he helped me. If so, why would he then need to kill them? Could they just not handle his extreme methods and actually killed themselves, afraid to face up to themselves, without any prompting from Bateman?

Hemmingway repeats his question that I have just failed to hear, too lost in my thoughts. “Is it going to come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then what do we do to make sure that it doesn’t come back?”

I am confused. Is it dead, should it be dead? Do I need it, or can I begin to work things out on my own? I have to settle on one undeniable fact; it was involved in every death that we are looking at, either by actively taking part or merely by association. There is a risk that it could come back, and that next person, if not me, may become a victim. It is possible that I have broken a chain, but I don not want another to start. “Smash all the mirrors?” is all I can suggest.

“Is that going to work, do you reckon?”

I shrug. “It’s got to.” How would I know? How could anyone know? It is an option that needs to be explored. 

Hemmingway has faith in me. Mitsuko, picking up on this, makes her own decision. She strides out of my room, the rest of us following to see what she is up to. Going into her own room, she walks up to the mirror on the cabinet, and in one swift movement, raises her leg and kicks it. The glass scatters onto the floor in a much more satisfactory way than I could ever have achieved. 

She turns to me. “Okay then, dweeb. You just got your chance.”

I’d be happier if I could just get rid of this doubt that I may be making a terrible mistake.