Mirror mirror

Chapter 1

Norman Anderson first realized something was wrong when he looked in the mirror.

He’d glanced at it as he was getting out of bed, and something about the image got his attention enough that he carefully walked toward it.

It was a large mirror that hung on his bedroom door, a heirloom of his parent’s he had not been able to part with, but as he approached the wrongness only got worse.

Instead of the average male 20-year-old image he normally saw, it was showing him the image of a young woman.

He waved, she waved back, he wiggled his fingers, so did she, no matter what he did she did the same.

For a moment he thought of an old movie starring Groucho Marx, where he posed as another man, and when the man saw him in a doorway he thought he was looking in a mirror. So Norman reached out and touched the mirror, and it felt reassuringly solid, the only odd thing was the nail on the finger on the image before him was on a slimmer finger.

Suddenly, Norman’s bladder woke, so he opened the door, and went down the hall to his small bathroom.

It wasn’t until he was finished that he realized he had sat down ...

He went to the sink to wash his hands, and sure enough, the girl was in the mirror in the bathroom too. Once he dried his hands, he went back to his bedroom to get dressed. He slipped off his pjs, and grabbed some clothes, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, out of a laundry basket. When he looked at himself, he saw his normal self, but whenever he looked up at the mirror on the door, he saw a pretty girl imitating everything he was doing.

He went to his small kitchen, grabbed a bowl and poured some cereal. He ate quickly, downed a glass of orange juice, and grabbed a bookbag that was hanging on the back of a chair that had a laptop on a table in front of it. He quickly checked the bag to make sure everything he would need was in it, and went to the door. He put on a light spring jacket and slipped into a pair of runners and went out the door.

Norman’s basement suite had its own entrance, so he could slip out to the alley without waking his landlords, which he did, and then he began hurrying down the alley toward the University. One of the reasons he had taken this suite was because of it being only five blocks from campus, close enough that he could walk it without much trouble most days. The business with the mirror had put him behind schedule, but he felt that with a quicker pace he would still be close to his usual time getting to the campus. As a rule, he liked to arrive at least fifteen minutes before his class started so he could get his pick of seats in the large classroom, and even though he ended up a few minutes behind that, he was still able to grab his favorite spot - second row, right at the end. He pulled a notebook and a pen out of his bag, and began re-reading his notes from yesterday, trying to put the strangeness of the morning behind him.

Soon, the professor arrived, the class began, and Norman was able to focus on the lesson and take notes. Once the class was over, he put his stuff away quickly, and hurried out into the hallway going toward his next class. The University schedule allowed fifteen minutes between classes, and sometimes Norman needed most of them just to get to his destination.

The next class passed without incident, as did the next one, and then Norman remembered why he hadn’t packed a lunch for today - he was supposed to meet two of his classmates from his Drama class in the smaller of the two main cafeterias. So he walked as quickly as he could manage to the cafeteria, but when he arrived he saw that the others had beaten him there. James was securing a table, while Nancy waved to Norman when she saw him enter.

Norman went over to them, sat down his bag, and said his hellos before excusing himself to grab a taco and pay for it. He came back to the table, and James and Nancy began to talk about the project they had been assigned in the class, which was to act out a short scene from the play of their choice. Norman had no illusions about being an actor, he had taken the class in part so he could have a backup in case his main goal, to be a teacher of history, got somehow sidetracked.

At first, Norman didn’t contribute much to the discussion, instead concentrating on his food, but eventually he relaxed enough to ask some questions and even make a suggestion or two. After a half-hour, he looked at his watch, and excused himself to, as he put it, “wash my hands before my next class.” He ran to the closest washroom, and had just finished when he heard Nancy saying “Wait up, Norma.”, as she entered the washroom.

Her voice was like a thunderclap during the night. Norman started, and looked around the washroom. Immediately, he saw what was missing - no urinals. He’d gone into the women’s washroom, and not even realized it.

He turned to Nancy just in time to hear her say , “Norma, we need to talk ...”

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