WALLS WITHOUT MIRRORS

When I was a kid I had a huge fear of vampires. I couldn't watch scary movies at all. I couldn't even watch an advertisement for a scary movie. When one would come on the TV in our family room — safe underground haven of green shag carpet and faux wood paneling, den of recliners and cheap encyclopedias (the only books in our house) — I would bury my head in my mom's lap and plug my ears, while my brother and sister exclaimed how they couldn't wait to see it. The worst ones were for vampire movies. They would haunt me for days. I would lie in my bed and imagine vampires everywhere. I would pull the covers up to my throat, even if it were scorching hot, and stare straight up at the ceiling. I was sure if I turned my head I would encounter a vampire — with cold eyes and blood-stained fangs — kneeling at the side of my bed. Sometimes I would call for my mom, moving nothing but my mouth, for fear of attracting the vampire's attention. And I know my mom would hear me and want to help, but it was always my stepdad who came to the door to sternly tell me to stop being ridiculous and go to sleep, that if he heard another peep out of me I'd be sorry.

My fear of vampires had something to do with their being humanlike and living forever. If I did fall asleep, which I usually did through the sheer exhaustion of squeezing my eyes shut in terror and denial, I would often have a nightmare about a vampire stalking me. It wasn't the actual bite that was so horrifying; it was the stalking, the dread, the horror of being alone and helpless and preyed upon — and never being able to die.

One night I had the worst nightmare of all. It was about a vampire who could withstand sunlight. This changed everything; now I was no longer safe even during the day. I would be playing in my room and would be seized with the horror that if I opened the closet or even just turned around there would be a vampire waiting. And there would be a split second — across the space between us — where he knew and I knew what would happen next. And that split second was like life revealed— the real core monstrosity of life laid bare. And I would make a beeline for my mom because the one sanctuary I had was the certainty that a vampire would not get me if I were with another person. In the sunlight nightmare, the vampire was dressed in a brown suit and was walking down the hallway of my house, which was very short but seemed very long. It ended with a full-length mirror right outside my door, where later as a young teenager I would primp and fog up the mirror with practice kisses. The vampire was carrying a suitcase, like he was coming to stay with me, and sunlight was streaming in the house. And the vampire, when he saw me said, "Kim, I'm here," and he smiled a little, enough for me to see the tips of his fangs, and the horror of the situation fell on me like a ton of rock. And it stayed with me a long time, the paralyzing fear, until I eventually outgrew it.

Or thought I did.

Then one day, a few years later — maybe I was 12 or so — I was walking down the hall and turned, just before going in my room, to vainly check myself out in the mirror. But instead of seeing my reflection I saw nothing. There was nothing where I should have been. It was like my gaze had gone straight through the white wall or had been bounced back into my own abyss. There were no boundaries. No surfaces. No definition. No moment in time. No reflection. I was a vampire. And it took me an eternal moment to realize that my mom had taken down the mirror to polish its frame. And since then, I have associated walls without mirrors with glimpses of my own self-conscious nothingness.