Mirror Universe

I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I streched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass. - The Outsider, H.P. Lovecraft

Last entries in the diary of Rekim Forr

1

Unhappy are they to whom their self perception, watery mirages and reflections aren't strangers; to whom those are books so vastly incomprehensible to the unwitting eye, one might never hope to evoke in others, the sentiments engendered. Wretched are they, who look back on uncounted aeons of self disciplined studies, tracing the movements of their own existence. Such a lot Azathoths blind dreams have given to me; my life, a cruel examination opposing the incomprehensible, blind, idiot nature of the universe. And yet, I am strangely content, and cling desperately to the knowledge inherit in my condition when challenged with the other.

When I first realised the strageness pertaining to my reflections I know not. For years and decades, there seemed something eerie about these objects, that twist and turn light back on itself, rendering a mirrored world for the beholder to inspect. Many a days have I spent studying these images, looking for flaws or deviations from the "reality" opposite this glassen plane, only to find it a copy, perfect in every aspect. And yet I wondered, what a mirror might miss or what might hide inside its mirrored world - for what if they worked both ways?

In later years, I came to accept these horrid constructs - as one does. Too often do we give in to societal conceptions of "what is", "what may be", and "what must not be". Too often do we start ignoring warnings, brought down by our ancestors; warnings and knowledge from beyond "what may be". A foolish tendency, as I have learned ever so often. Many stories, now condemed to the supersticious or fictous aimed at scaring little children, hold darker truths - wisdom from ages long passed; wisdom from a time where humans would wander the earth undistracted from billboards, handheld devices and grand tales of constant material productivity. (Sidenote in more recent script: One such truth, pertains to the hindu conception of the Ātman and its' parallels with those sinister worlds we peer at, through mirrors.)

2

Returning to the world of consciousness at the end of a lengthened meditation, I found that the grand window into the mirrored plane, with it's unobstructed view of my meditation room, shewed not, what it had before: the mirrored room now housed not the soalless version of myself, watching me through its dead, glassy eyes, reflecting my every move, but rather the same, ghoulish figure, looking off into the distance, horizontally rotated by 180 degrees. I was staring at a figures' back; a figure still mimicking me grotesquely in every detail. I ignored it, blaming it on faulty perception and my drowsiness, for this was a thing "what must not be", and headed towards an uneasy sleep.

Upon waking and discovering the figure still turned away in every mirror and reflective surface I could find, I headed out. Without inquiring directly about what I was seeing - for this would get me hospitalized before too long - I provoked and studied situations in which others too, would see the foul thing ignorantly turning its back on me. I rode on elevators equipped with huge mirrors, inspected the wares of a craftsman specializing in the reflective surfaces and studied tapes of surveillance cameras, streamed live onto screens for the public to see. None would recognize the strageness of the world they perceived. The expected reflections seemed to greet them - if by pure ignorance or distraction I cannot say.

I have always detested this world, devoid of sound and life beyond those glass panes, and yet I cannot bear the thought that this world may be different and alive after all. After confirming with a trusted friend - one with whom such matters could be discussed without risking the involvement of a psychiatric ward - that indeed, even she could perceive only that, which she had expected to see, I knew, a more ancient and powerful force must be corrupting the root of my reality.

3

In similar, yet more elaborate script:

Months I have now trod the libraries and archives of cultural studies departments across the continent. Weeks have I spent in silent contemplation of the accounts compiled. Days have I sat unmoving, lain in pain, screamed and danced in ecstatic meditation. My mind lost, regained, splintered, healed, fragmented, reassembled, shattered like the black mirror of the Temple of Zuth underneath the City of Ur. Ygnaiih Yog-Sothoth! By all gods and outer beings, I have learned the name and seen the nature of this corruption.

The Hindus were right, at least in part, for beholders we all are - beholders not of reality, but of that which we will to be. We peer into the world, acting our part in Azathoths dream, beholding it from within - and yet are blind, as Azathoth themself. Humans are in nature not so different from mirrors. Eyes are the gateway to the soal - yet if I am to look into the eyes of the strangers I encounter, I do not see their soal. We see not what is, but what we will to be. These eyes, touching others with their hunger for "reality" see not the infinite complexities of those they peer at. They look and see caricatures of human beings, befitting their perception and understanding of the world. They look and see not the broken soal, but will to be prey or monsters as they see fit. Just as I can neither see my soal nor body in these horrid glassen universes. Only few learned ones can see beyond the veil of flesh and social construction we have built to constrain our world within.

There are those that peer beyond. There are those that know "what really is". I have gone beyond and returned to finish this account. I shall now return and take my place as Seer beyond the gate that keeps us from seeing "what really is". I shall dream of you one day.

Signed: Rekim Forr, twelfth Seer to the Tomar of Uruk.
Found next to the shattered "Mirror of Ukthan", Museum of Cultural History, Vienna.
Archived as "MESO-CULT-HAZRED-04421/3 UNLISTED"

Cosmic Horror, Weird Tale, Story