Invisible

I don’t know how to tell people what I am. 

I think of that as I stare in the mirror. My face looks surprisingly long and gaunt today. My hollow cheekbones sink into my face, and my thin lips and eyebrows waver along the edges of my face, like a mere suggestion on an artist’s canvas, an afterthought. My brown hair wisps around the edges of my sharp collarbones, which poke out like awkward knives. My breasts sag slightly, a sign of disentangling youth, and my ribs cut through my skin, jutting out slightly. 

I touch my face lightly, almost as if I might break. I’ve always thought I’ve looked like a dying Victorian orphan, or an old porcelain doll. 

In the background, I hear my sister calling my name. 

The faucet drips. I put my hands down. They shake slightly on the rim of the sink. 

 I can’t quite believe that the being I’m staring at is myself. I scrunch up my face, then watch as the reflection in the mirror does the same, the dark circles under her eyes becoming thin moon-shaped crescents. I lift up my arms, and the reflection lifts up her thin, ghostly arms. I stick out my tongue. The reflection does the same, the pink brightness of her tongue contrasting with the paleness of her face. 

“Hello,” I whisper. 

The reflection mouths out the same word.

I sigh, then am tempted to take out a cigarette. I begin to turn around, searching for my bag, then stop, chiding myself. It’s too early, I think. And there’s the date to think about.

I glance back at the mirror, and find my reflection staring back at me intensely. Her eyes are clouded with alarming thoughts. 

I am a sick man, I am an invisible man. A train of thought that led inevitably to the other. All sick men must be invisible, thus all invisible men must be sick. That is undoubtedly true, I think, for I am both. I am sick: I am sad when I shouldn’t be, I don’t want sex when I should want it. And I am invisible, for no one knows these things but me. 

What are the right words to describe me, then? 

I mouth my name, meaningless words, into the mirror. 

My reflection mouths them back with a frown, her hands trembling. 

I hear my sister call out my name again.

I put my hands down, out of sight of the mirror, then bend down to open the lower cabinet. Inside lay my medications, neatly organized in rows. I pop some brightly colored pills into my hand, then, turning the faucet, drink some water and gulp them down. I hope that will stop the trembling.

I look at my empty eyes in the mirror. My reflection stares back. I lack things, I think suddenly. An identity, some humanity. If I was someone, if I was a proper human being, I’d want someone to fuck my brains out. I’d want to suck a dick until cum filled my mouth. And as I lay there, the whitish liquid pooling from my lips, I’d feel happy. 

But I’m not a person, I think. I’m not a human being. The thought of cum makes me want  to be sick. The thought of sex makes me feel sad. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t do it for me. I am a sick man, I am an invisible man.

If I was real, then I would be able to define myself, I think.

I think of the labels that were applied to me in a psychiatrist’s brown office, so long ago. Depressed, asexual. Do these words define me? Or do they define my invisibility?

Is there even a difference?

I groan, watching my reflection’s voicebox buzz slightly, then grab my makeup pouch. 

I begin to paint my face and to worry. How will I present myself to others?, I think as I curl my eyelashes carefully. As an underground man? As a strong, confident woman? As a depressed woman? As an asexual one? I shake these ridiculous thoughts out of my head, then try again, beginning to trace the outlines of my eyebrows. 

“Hello,” I practice, smiling falsely, then powder my cheeks. “I’m– I mean, my name is–”

I sigh, then try again, this time putting light eyeshadow carefully on my face. 

“Hi,” I say. “I’m…I…”

But I can’t think of anything appropriate to say. I finish doing my makeup and stare at myself in the mirror. My reflection stares back at me, looking so like me yet so unlike me at the same time. I gaze at the mirror, as if trying to decipher the ancient mystery of my identity, of my true self–

“There you are,” I suddenly hear. I turn around and see my sister standing in the doorway of the bathroom, her arms folded across her chest. 

“Come on,” she says. “You’re going to be late for your date.”

I nod and step out of the bathroom, grabbing my things. And as I notice my sister gazing intensely at me, at my made-up face, I can’t help but think that, to my sister, the reflection in the mirror is completely invisible.