Reflections – locations on five continents

She looked in the mirror and found to her horror that she was in the wrong house. Not a bad house, mind you. She found it quite stylish. The décor was very much to her taste, though the colour scheme was certainly not one she would have chosen herself. (She would have been afraid to try it because, alas, she tended to be overly conservative with her home.) But it was graceful, cool and had a certain understated verve that she connected with. Somehow, it was just her.

Still, it was not her house and she wondered how that had happened.

Turning away from the mirror to look at the room directly, she found she was, in fact, in her own house. Scrunching her face in a puzzled expression, she turned back to the mirror.

There it was again. The wrong house. Yet it was herself she saw reflecting back, just in the wrong place. It made no sense. Actually, it made her a bit queasy because it was so unsettling. And unfathomable.

She turned back to her room, her house. She shook her head as if that would somehow dispel the peculiarity. Walking over to sit down on the bed she saw, from the corner of her eye, herself again: Moving toward the bed but the wrong bed, in the wrong house.

She also saw something else.

And then she heard something. Someone.

“It’s you,” a voice said. “Isn’t it?”

She quickly turned to look directly at the mirror. There, in the reflection, she saw an impeccably dressed man step out from behind the beautiful drapes that hung over the French doors (which her own bedroom did not have). Quickly looking behind, at her room, she saw no one. But a man, a man with the very self-possessed manner and aura of someone with exquisite taste, stood smiling before her as she turned back to the mirror.

“Well?” he asked. “Is it you or not?” His smile widened. A bit conspiratorially, he leaned forward and added softly, “I think it is. Mm?”

“Me? Who me? What me?” she sputtered, baffled. “What do you mean?”

“The room, of course.” He spread his arms apart as if to take in the entire space, his space, the one in the mirror’s reflection, which was not her house but someone else’s, yet somehow her’s too.

“Uuh …,” she began, knowing she sounded mentally unhinged and perhaps a bit dull-witted, “I guess. Listen! Who are you? And what the hell’s going on?”

She sounded cross because she was cross. It made her mad that she was sounding dim.

Again, the man smiled. “Of course, I understand your confusion. We get this all the time. No need to worry. My name is Gilles. Monsieur Gilles Parent and I represent Reflections – locations on five continents! We specialize in home décor. I do interior design and I’ve prepared all this …,”

He again opened his arms to take in the room. “I’ve prepared all this …,” he repeated, “Because I feel very strongly it’s you.”

Confused, but surrendering to the absurdity, she nodded toward the room in the mirror. “Yes, it’s very nice.”

“You see,” M. Parent began, more to the room than to her, “We’ve developed a very new, very innovative technique. We’re revolutionizing the world of fashion and design. Be it for clothing, interior design, landscaping … wherever design has a place, we can help find the exact look to match the yearnings of your soul.”

He stopped and looked at her with a questioning frown. “That was a little over the top, wasn’t it?” For a moment, his Parisian accent disappeared. It had been replaced by one she vaguely recognized as belonging in the southern American states. “’The yearnings of your soul’ … What was I thinking? I always get carried away.

“Oh well, the point is …” He stopped and cleared his throat. When he continued, the French accent was back. “The point is we can provide a perfect look for you. The word ‘look’ is very important. It’s suggestive of our technique. Essentially, over a period of time – the length is determined by the personality of the client and can vary widely – we observe, from here.” He indicated the side of the mirror he was on.

“We see you at your best and at your worst. We see you in your intimate moments, alone only with yourself, and we can see and sense the inner person. The true you. Through our expert observational techniques we come to an understanding of what moves you, what you need for your perfect world. And then we provide it, such as I have here.”

The smile returned as he waved his arm in a “Voila!” fashion, indicating his side of the mirror.

The room filled with silence as he waited for a response and she stared back at him blankly. Finally, she said, “That’s the craziest damn thing I’ve ever heard.”

He blinked. “Of course it is,” he replied.

She returned his blink. “I have always wanted French doors in here.”

“Yes,” he answered. “I know. Shall we talk contract?”

No fool, she shot back, “Shall we talk price?”

He sighed, “If we must …”

“And I have a few questions. For instance, just how do you get what’s over there on your side of the mirror to this side, where I am?”

Briefly, M. Parent’s self-possession left him as he smiled awkwardly. “Yes, well we are a very new company. Very new. And as may be expected, there are a few minor difficulties we are working on. How do the computer people put it? ‘Beta’, I believe …”