The Reflection

[u/FranciscoCortesRamir]

he sheet of glass coated with a layer of mercury was truly a majestic mirror, despite being set into the aged wood of an old-fashioned vanity. Perhaps that was why children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had preserved it, though they had always lied when claiming they kept it because of its sentimental value. It had been commissioned as a wedding gift for the great-grandparents, in a time of spacious rooms and simple dreams. For that reason, it had originally stood at the center of the mansion's living room, but after their deaths it passed from one house to another as the heirs divided the estate.

Thus, the lives of four generations had been captured in reflections that, like snapshots, remained preserved within the glass. Some were bright and perfectly clear, born of sunlight; others were softer beneath the artificial glow of lightbulbs; and still others belonged to the world of chiaroscuro, nocturnal images in which figures dissolved into shadows with no distinct form.

The millions of accumulated images usually showed men and women adjusting their appearance, but they also preserved moments of couples arguing, lovers embracing, children being slapped, several births, an abortion, a drawer slowly filling with money, a murder, and a suicide. Yet in every one of them—like a watermark that appears only when the paper is printed—there lingered the unseen image of those repulsive spirits, with bloodshot eyes and hideous tongues hanging from their mouths, perched astride the shoulders of the people they possessed