‘Subject: Mirror, Mirror’: An Excerpt
From ‘Lonely as a Crowded Room’
By Badar Salem
Translation by the author
Subject: mirror, mirror
I spent the entire day staring at the ceiling, unable to find a single reason to rise from bed: not for a sip of water, not for the bathroom. I wished to remain there indefinitely, shielded from life itself. Throughout those endless hours, as the sky shifted from blue to black, I contemplated my existence but felt nothing—no love, no sorrow, no longing. My life seemed reduced to mere words in an email, sent to strangers who would judge my suitability for university or employment. Something in this world felt profoundly flawed.
Memories surfaced— anxiety before interviews, tears over rejection letters. If it were up to me, I would accept everyone. I knew there were moments when I felt beautiful, intelligent, cherished, yet I couldn’t remember a single one. “It’s not easy to fall in love with you,” Jalil had once said, likening me to a block of ice. And yet each time I saw him, my heart raced as I teetered on the verge of fainting.
I have long believed my heart to be small, insufficient for my body’s needs. Though lacking a scientific basis for this, I feel it is fragile, like “earthenware, glass vessels offered for sale on a sidewalk.”[1] I know—intuitively—that surrendering to love completely may give me a cardiac event.
Stubborn, cold, weird—these traits have followed me all my life. I have never felt the need to deny or embrace them; they simply exist. It’s as though the person the world sees has little to do with me, as if they’re describing someone else entirely. I move through life detached, unburdened by the need to validate or refute their perceptions; even correcting how people pronounce my name has never seemed worth the effort. It’s as if I am living alongside my own existence. There were a few I had hoped would uncover the real me, wrapped like a gift in colorful Christmas paper. However, the outcome was always disappointing—I am a damaged product.
Mirrors are my adversaries, instruments of torture.[2] I loathe my reflection: my forehead, ears, neck. The dark circles under my eyes serve as a reminder of my imperfections. I hold a different image of my face in my mind, so when I see my reflection I panic—Who is this corpse? During video calls, I fixate on my own image as if I were watching a stranger, until someone interrupts to remind me to look away.
I know I am not alone in this. The endless filters on social media prove how much we despise our own faces. We recoil from the sight of lifeless skin, eyes sunk in darkness. We long for a face untouched by time, glowing, unburdened. We hide from the specter of mortality that surfaces every time we look in the mirror. Mirrors, it seems, are the enemy of the human soul.
Then there are those automated glass doors, the ones that seem to possess a quiet awareness of my absence. One should not underestimate their discernment, they know human ghosts. Every time I approach one, it remains shut. I step forward, then back, willing the sensor to recognize me, but the door remains closed. “Hello, I am here,” I murmur, but it refuses to acknowledge me. Yet the moment another person approaches, the door springs open effortlessly. Such incidents trigger my worst existential crises.
Not long ago, I went downtown to buy sanitary pads, only to be met with yet another unyielding glass door. Yassin, waiting in the car, intervened just as I was about to hurl a small rock through the glass. “You’re losing it,” he said, prying the rock from my grip. Maybe he’s right—maybe madness is my truth, an immutable part of me, beyond repair.
[1] “Earthenware, glass vessels offered for sale on a sidewalk, / As I gaze upon them, I think: / My body, like theirs, is fragile.” – Mamdouh Al-Sakaf.
[2] “There is no friendly mirror, all mirrors are deadly.” -Salah Stetia.