The Mirror

Andy rolled over again in bed, his head heavy from the lack of sleep and yet again, the morning sun was shining through his bedroom onto his face, making it yet another sleepless night in a row.

He couldn't handle the heat, and had to have the windows open, but the noise of the builders who had been developing a house across the road for nearly 3 years now was loud and annoying, especially when the drills came on, or someone started cutting through wood with electrical saws.

He couldn't force himself to sleep anymore. It was only 8am and he had gone to bed at 5am after sitting up all night preparing the bets for the first day of Glorious Goodwood.

Rolling out of bed just in his boxer shorts he took some vitamins and some benzos from his medications and walked towards the mirror to see how rough he looked.

It was the usual state, pale face, too much stubble and bags under his eyes. A loud bang came from outside across the road and he turned for a second shocked from the loudness of it. 

“For fucks sake, can't you start work after midday or something”, he shouted towards the window, knowing no-one would hear him before turning back to the mirror. It was then he noticed the reflection had totally changed, no longer a mirror image of himself, it was a swirling vortex of pink and purple rushing around in circles.

He went to touch the glass and found his fingers slipping gently through the barrier into what felt like open space. What was this he thought to himself? Some sort of worm hole created inside his room, would he be taken back or forward in time if he jumped in he wondered, thinking about the lecture from Donald Hoffman on the holographic universe he had seen on YouTube last night as he tried to get to sleep.

Gain points, and not seeing the true reality of the world around you, that's how humans have evolved and survived by not seeing true reality. We don't see all the atoms around us, mostly filled with space, no our minds construct a concept for us, and the gain points are collected for us to pro-create and that is all. 

He pushed his hand in further hoping to be sucked into another reality, one that wasn't so mundane and boring, but then he felt someone grab his hand from the other side. He looked up and tried to pull back but was met with a suited man in the mirror.

“Who are you?” Andy said, and the reflection replied “I am your Nationwide bank manager, don't you realise you overdraft is meant for short term lending only, you are hundred of pound in debt, how are you going to pay it back?”

“I don't know, I'm on the fucking sick man, I'm skint” Andy replied to a shaking head as a team of bank staff appeared behind the man all pointing their fingers at him disparagingly. “We will have to instantly withdraw your lending if you don't pay it back, then what will you do?”

Andy shook his head, he had no idea what he would do if he had to pay back the money he was overdrawn, and he had no idea why this bank manager was in his mirror.

He felt his hand let go and tried to pull it back from the mirror but before he could extract it, it was once taken again. He looked up this time it was a doctor from his surgery. “Oh fuck” he thought to himself what sort of bollocking is she going to give me.

“The sort you need Andrew”, came back the voice, in a tone that his mother would say as a child when disappointed with him. “Do you know how many drugs you are being prescribed at the moment? You keep reminding us that you know about medicines and the re-actions between them and it's true, we never have enough time to read every medications list of re-actions and other medications you should not be on that conflict with one another. Well in this sphere of space-time, I have had all eternity to read every little line from your 3 page prescription list”.

“Oh shit”, thought Andy, maybe berating the GP's at his surgery for not knowing their ass from their elbow had come back to bite him.

“2 different kinds of benzodiazepines, plus the strongest opiates we can prescribe, all on top of a mix of anti psychotics and other pain killers. This is not NICE recommendations, you have managed to slip past us for this long, but no more. Your heart could stop at any moment from the combinations of medications”

“Don't, don't go there please”, pleaded Andy. “I have been screwed up by you for years with your misdiagnosis's and drugs and vaccines that have put me in hospital. At least I read the lists and know the side effects. Something you should have on your computer when you go to prescribe a new medicine." 

"Hey I could even write you a program that you could get data entry staff from India to fill for a fiver a day with all the side effects, and list of drugs that should not be taken with existing scripts”, he retorted. It's wasn't his fault they were so busy that you had to waste half any meeting with a GP reminding them of all his medical problems. A simple bloody EXCEL spreadsheet would probably fix it.

“I am going to take away you opiates and your benzos, and then we will see how well you sleep at night” Laughed the female doctor, he knew her but not her name. Every time he went to the place he seemed to see a new face to explain his issues to. A flock of white coats appeared behind her as the vortex of purple seemed to suck them back in, all whilst they pointed and laughed at him.

Oh shit, Andy thought to himself, what's going to be next as he tried as fast as he could to pull his hand out of the mirror but alas it was too slow and a wrinkly pinching grip around his wrist dragged him back towards the vortex. He could tell it was a women from the nails digging into his hand but didn't want to look up. There were too many females in his life that could berate him for ages and he didn't need another telling off.

Slowly he raised his head but instead of seeing his mother or an ex girlfriend he was met with his Scottish Grandma, who had died when he was in his teens. She had always been a funny lady and he used to be excited every time he saw her. What horrible things did she have in store for him he wondered.

“Nothing my dear”, came the response, telepathy at work. “I can see your struggles and the pain you are in, the life you wanted was not in the shop when God was giving out souls was it my dear?”. Andy felt a tear form in the corner of his eye. “Don't worry grandson, we all make mistakes and we all have problems that other can't see”, he felt her grip get lighter around his wrist. 

He hadn't seen her for decades, and she was always the one that played with him on visits to Scotland on the sand dunes at Rockcliffe Beach. He remembered her always smoking, and the day she let him have a drag of one of her slims behind a mound of sand as his parents walked on. She would always sing a silly song in the car to keep him and his sister occupied, “Och Aye da noo” he used to say to her nonsensically as she sang the song “I know an old lady, she swallowed a fly, but I don't know why she swallow the fly, I guess she'll die...” Andy started singing as he could feel her hand slowly getting loser and loser.

“I know an old lady who swallow a spider, it wigged and iggled and tickled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly, but I don't know why I guess she'll die..” he sang louder and louder as his lovely Grandma slipped back towards the vortex.

“Don't worry everything will be ok”, he could just make out as the vortex swirled around and sucked her up inside. No he was gutted he hadn't seen her for so long and she hadn't said bad word to him.

Maybe everyone struggles with money, and has health problems, he thought as the mirror slowly returned to a solid state of glass and he quickly slipped his hand back through. Despite the doctors and the bank managers he had got to see his old gran. The one that used to be nice to him and he wished he had seen more of as a kid. What a weird way to start the morning he thought when he heard a voice from one of the builders across the road.

“Stop singing fucking kiddy songs you bloody mong” he laughed along with the other builders who had obviously heard him sing along with his gran.

Andy walked towards the open window where he could see the builders, he grabbed his crotch and shook it up and down and stuck a finger up at them with a big grin on his face, before shutting the windows and jumping back onto the bed. Maybe he could get some kip now that he knew somehow, someway that time was eternal. Maybe Donald Hoffman was right, we don't see reality as it really is, we all see it differently, some more than others.

He rolled over put a pillow over his head and fell asleep within minutes.

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