“BZZZZZ. BZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZ.” The phone rang in the silent apartment. It cried desperately for attention, an invitation to another world. It cried for help. For mercy. Begging, pleading on behalf of the caller, on behalf of Apple, of AT&T, on behalf of society for his attention. The ring seduced the man’s imagination, offering him endless possibilities if he would just slide his thumb across the smooth piece of glass. It could be anyone. Telling him anything. Irregardless it was from the future. No one ever calls from the past. Calls always cause change, moving people closer or farther, condemning some to oblivion and others to the grave. Giving and stealing money. Then it died. The ringing stopped. The phone recognized his will and yielded.




The man sat on the yellow canvas couch looking out over the ignited city, painted by the hues of a falling star. He gazed through the glass as shades of red teased the glass skyscrapers, leading each pane on then plunging it into darkness. High above in his castle of glass he watched the dark ants scramble along the sidewalks, boarding buses and waiting at stoplights.




He was a young man (but everyone was young now). He had dark hair and tired eyes. Eyes that wanted something but were tired of looking for it. His sinewy frame shaped the contours of his tight undershirt and was traced by the sharp lines of his slacks.

The phone buzzed again. He glared at it. He adjusted the stack of paper on glass table in front of him. He knew they were coming. And he knew what they wanted. But they were not going to get him. Ants, safe in their anonymity, rushed with sirens, trying to correct some social mistake. He slowly stood up and walked over to the glass wall. His reflection rose too. He rested his palm in his reflection for a second gazing deeply into his reflection’s eyes. He took too steps back and then through himself at his doppelganger, with the ferocity and desperation of a man who has nothing to lose. The glass shattered and his reflection flew into a million pieces. And the man was gone. All there was a pile of meat and glass in the middle of the rode 34 stories below. In the empty apartment the phone rang.

“I discovered something. I found something deep within myself. I was kissing ********* and I looked down into her eyes and I saw a face. I saw two eyes, and a nose. It was my face. Pretty soon wherever I looked I saw my face. In the window of every store, in the bathroom, whenever I pulled my phone out. I was in the bottom of the pot in my kitchen. I was in the window display at Joseph Banks. I was in the men’s room at the club. I was in my phone. I was in my computer. And once I become aware of that face stalking me I began to watch out for it. Soon I started noticing it in other places. It was on all the ids in my wallet. It was on every network I used. It was on a plethora of websites. It was on dozens of my friends phones. And dozens more versions of it are being made every day. I often wonder about the destiny of those faces capture in the thousands of pictures that get taken of me.

But it was everywhere. And these pictures had captions. Those captions were my name. That face shared my name. I tried to hide from the stalker. I bought a pair of dark sunglasses and dyed my hair. But the face copied everything I did.

But it got worst. I started noticing the subtle techniques of the face. Wherever I was it was. Whatever I said it said. Anything that I did it did.

I was eating out one day at the usual place. A pub on 41st and Roosevelt. I had ********* and ***** with me. They were talking between bites about something related to entertainment. And all of a sudden I realized: they don’t know me. They are talking to the face. They aren’t even talking to that. They are talking to their own faces. When they looked into my eyes they weren’t looking at me but themselves. I am just a mirror. They throw statuses to their networks in an attempt to catch an image of their own face. They want likes to know that their actions bring them and their reflections closer together.

You see man is a god. He is free. But he is a slave. Pain pursues his every step, driving him forward at a relentless speed. And so he seeks solace through his reflection. Because the only thing that really matters is the identity he constructs.

When I realized that everything in my life had been usurped by this face I wanted to hide. I wanted to be faceless. Why should I talk to mirrors? Why should I allow this face to define me? So I tried to set myself free. I stopped talking to my friends. I stopped using my networks. And I freed myself from loneliness.

Your never quite as lonely alone as you are in a vacuous public.”





I took the pills. I thought about refusing. But what would that win me? All the white hurt my eyes. Sterile faces in sterile uniforms walking down sterile hall ways. All the white makes my eyes feel overexposed. They lock my rooms doors at night. And during the day there is a nurse stationed at the end of the hall whose eyes integrate you whenever you dare to insomuch as touch the door. The pills make me feel sick at first. I lay in my bed as faces hover above me, fleshy islands in a sea of lifeless omnipotent white. The faces dance as a pane of glass presses down onto me. The pressure increases as the faces drift. In and out of the mirrors that surround me. I am standing in white room with no light. Shadows and reflections mingle. I turn, looking for a way out. As far as I can see in any direction is glass and mirrors. I walk up to one of them and peer into the depth of my eyes. And I realize that I am the reflection.