Did you comb your hair the other way this morning? Do I see you face-on or widdershins? Behind us an abandoned city of the ancients pierces the sky, but I have eyes only for you: the boy staring back at me from the sparkling surface of the lake, so like me but not me.
I’m told the city offers countless wonders; strange reflections in the lake are just local superstition. But after hours of staring, the differences between us accumulate. Visible only in snatches, animated by the glitter dance of light on the water. The saccades of your eyes, individual windblown hairs, the smile haunting the corner of your mouth.
Or how, when my attention wavers, I glimpse you flick your hair the other way and laugh.
Professor Sloeworthy glowers into the city’s depths, like a fat dragon hoarding treasure.
I arrived with her expedition a week ago, trading life as a gutter rat to be little more than a slave. But it’s my only chance to taste adventure; I spent too many years on the streets to go it alone, to risk failing and returning to penury.
Sloeworthy and her assistants attend to the glamorous mysteries. Gravity going wobbly. Machines that never run out of power. Doors connecting buildings miles apart.
The drudgery of studying you, an unsubstantiated local fairy-tale, falls to me—after I have cleaned camp, prepared meals, washed clothes, taken a beating to ease the others’ frustrations.
“It’s nonsense, but record everything, Adewale,” Sloeworthy yells. “That is, if you can write.”
Despite her dismissiveness, the water disturbs her, shimmering even on overcast days. She doesn’t want to admit what she sees. In her world, what shies from cold analysis doesn’t exist.
But I know better. By night, I drown in dreams thick as molasses: dreams of the millions who once lived here, speaking with their reflections in the lake.
Acquaintances. Maybe friends.
Sloeworthy heard about the reflections from local fishermen. They are loathe to disturb the lake. They go out only on windless days when the surface is smooth as glass.
They speak of reflections scratching an ear or sneezing, all on their own. An old man claims that his likeness once caught a giant catfish and got pulled under, never to resurface.
Fearful, he refused to go near the lake, and orders us away.
After weeks of studying moments trapped in ripple and shimmer like flies in amber, you and I glimpse one another more easily.
The others, meanwhile, grow confused. The city resists them. They mutter darkly into the shimmering lake when they think nobody is looking.
I wake early to find a word written backward in breath on the privy mirror.
A-D-E-W-A-L-E.
Our name, written by your hand, manifest on my side.
I almost wake the others. This is my ticket to real status. To adventure!
But then I see your knowing smile in the water and tell no one.
Your Sloeworthy yells even more than mine. Both have dark circles under their eyes. Last night, one of Sloeworthy’s assistants drowned in the lake. They beat us, then I wade into the water, standing foot-to-foot with you. You jump and stamp and tear your hair, fracturing from me, while I remain frozen in perfect desynchrony.
I find your outburst cathartic. To survive the streets, I had to bottle my temper, sit on my dreams. Now, I warm myself by the embers of your rage. I dare to feel again, just a little.
Later, I realise that in the excitement I have lost a shoe.
More items go missing. A hairnet, a comb, a sock.
Then I find Sloeworthy’s hat under my pillow. I hasten to return it, only to find her wearing it.
I stumble to the lake to see you sitting on a rock, polishing a shoe. My shoe.
The lake glitters. You laugh, clamping your hands over your mouth, faerie-like.
You show me your loot from my side. You demonstrate reaching with eyes closed. Soon I can pinch things from your side, too.
For the first time, I feel like I matter. I have power.
By now, our expressions rarely align. You look to the mountains. To adventure. Excitement fills your eyes.
But I’m afraid of losing the first wonderful thing that ever belonged to me. If only I could be with you for real. Then I’d be brave enough to chase any dream.
Sloeworthy would give anything to know what I know. She would reward me handsomely, at least stop the beatings.
But I won’t give you up for anything.
Your gaze is fixed more and more on the mountains. I beg you to wait until I find a way to come over to your side. It’s just a matter of commitment. Why else would you be here if not to lead me to a better life.
You have a black eye. Your Sloeworthy yells at you, having discovered your loot from my side; my Sloeworthy yells at the lake for driving her team mad. It’s all coming apart.
You shimmer-shine and shadowcast, speaking our found tongue: Let’s go.
But I can’t.
Ashamed, I hide, away from the water.
Come morning, I have no reflection in the lake.
Before Sloeworthy can grab me, I run to the fisherman with no reflection.
“When’d your other leave?” he barks.
“How did you know?”
“Look like you ain’t sure if you gonna drop dead.”
“Will I?”
“Still here, ain’t I?”
“But I don’t want to be afraid like you.”
He flinches. “City ain’t abandoned for nothing: lake shows not what’s outside but what’s inside. What’s in me is dreams of drowning; this life dragged on too long.” He turns rheumy eyes on me. “What’s in you?”
“Adventure,” I say, realising that you were only ever a part of me, one that has already left.
All the rest of me must do is follow.
Who knows, maybe we’ll bump into one another again.
“Arthur H. Manners (he/him) is a British speculative fiction writer, with a background in space physics and data science. His work is published in places like Strange Horizons, DreamForge, and Drabblecast. In 2023, he received the Writers of the Future award. He’s currently working on a cosmic-scale science fiction novel involving alien megastructures, chaos theory and fractal mayhem. Find him on Twitter (@a_h_manners), Instagram (@docmanners) or his website (www.arthurmanners.com). Sign up to his newsletter for new story updates, cat photos, and links to science, art and other eclectic titbits (http://eepurl.com/hAQw8b).”