Bar Reflections

I sit at the bar and stare into the mirror behind the glass racks. I can see myself sitting there watching myself in the mirror. I hate it when I can do that. Everything about me looks ass backwards when I see myself in the mirror. I always thought that I parted my hair on the other side but every time I look in the damn mirror it confirms that I am wrong about that and all the other stuff. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I should have been left-handed. Maybe I am when I look in the mirror.

The blonde girl three stools down looks normal when I see her in the mirror. Her part in her blonde locks is right there where I pictured that it would be when I first spotted her in the mirror behind the bar. She appears to be a good mirror person; not like me all warped and back assward in the mirror. Oh what a lucky one she is. I hope she doesn’t look in the mirror at me and see my backwardness. It will be a turnoff for her and she will dismiss my presence and cast me from her future. Damn that mirror! When I see her in the mirror, I am fairly certain that she is a star of the silver screen. I have seen her in several movies. She is easily recognizable and I find myself wanting to ask for her autograph when I see her in the mirror. Glancing down the bar at her, I see only a cheap little tart in a dress that is two sizes too small. She’s got a big ass. I like her better in the mirror.

The guy there with the blonde. He looks good in the mirror too. In fact, in the mirror, he looks like a lawyer and has me convinced that he is every time I look at his mirrored image. If I needed a lawyer, I would probably ask him. I would ask him in the mirror because I would know if he took the job in the mirror he would be a better lawyer for me. When I look at him down the bar, I think he might drive a garbage truck. I don’t feel good about his qualifications to practice law. I like him better in the mirror where the name embroidered on his shirt does not show. When I look at him in the mirror, I am pretty sure that he has an office downtown or possibly uptown. Either way, it has his name on the door and a girl, ‘Friday’ sitting out in the waiting area greeting the many clients who show up at his door. His success as a great attorney is well-known throughout the town when I look at him in the mirror. When I look down the bar at him, I feel certain that his garbage truck route departs each morning before sunrise.

I wonder if I move to another stool if I will look different to me in the mirror. I wonder if I look different to them in the mirror. Does the blonde take me for a senator? Does she want to come to Washington with me and work as my personal aide-de-camp? Is she attracted to power, the kind that a senator like me wields with all my congressional committee chairmanships. Does she see me? If she saw me in the mirror like that, I think that I could look a lot different to myself when I look in the mirror. I could go down there and just ask her but who cares what that cheap little tart with the big ass thinks about anything. I’m more interested in the blonde in the mirror who wants to share my powers.

Maybe a moustache or a beard would improve my mirror image. I might become unrecognizable to myself when I looked for myself in the mirror. I would just be lost in the crowd, the crowd there in the mirror. I would have a comfort level in knowing that. I would not stand out. I would no longer be that backward freak in the mirror that I see every time I look in there while sitting here at the bar. Even that garbage truck driver down there with the blonde might be impressed. He might even point me out to his friend, the lawyer, who lives there in the mirror and knows the garbage truck driver who comes to this bar regularly.

Time to pay my tab again and leave me here in the mirror once again. I will take my backward ass on home and get some sleep so that I can show up for work tomorrow just like I did today. Then tomorrow night as soon as I get off from work, I’m going to come back down here and look for myself looking for myself in the mirror and see if I look any different. Maybe I’ll wear a hat. Maybe that blonde movie star and that lawyer will be here too. I hope so. I had rather look at them in the mirror.

(Copyright) WBrown2010