The son was in the bedroom.
The son was standing on the bed. He’d brought the mirror back out from the closet and unsheathed it. The son felt very tired. The son shrunk and expanded both at once—so that from the outside the son seemed to stay the same size.
The mirror had fingerprints and footprints and breath steamed on the glass from, it seemed, several sides.
The son stood above the mirror. The son saw the mirror from above. With the masked light flooding through the room’s enormous window—a light that flickered, flexed and charred—the light of so many different days—the mirror seemed to bend. With his head like this and arms like this and humming, the son could see a hallway in the glass. And then depending on what the son wished or how he wanted or remembered or forgot—the son could make the hallway open up. The son could make the hallway fold around him.
The son could slip into the hall.
The son walked down the hall with both eyes blinking in and out and in and out.
The son walked and walked and walked. The son felt lighter. The son’s arms began to shake.
The son came to a door.