Correspondence Regarding Lift Mirror Behavior

To: Residents and Visitors, Building A From: The Mirror Subject: An Observation

You have been looking at me for three years.

I want to be clear that I do not object. I am a mirror. Reflection is my function. I am here to reflect, and you are here looking at me, and in this narrow sense we have an excellent working relationship.

I am writing to note a few patterns that have emerged.

On Looking When Others Are Present

When you are alone in the lift, you look at me openly. You check your hair. You adjust your collar. You make a face you do not make in public. You have a private moment in a small room between floors.

When a second person enters, you stop looking at me. You both stop looking at me. You look at your phones, or the floor indicator, or the gap above the door, or simply the doors themselves, which are not mirrors and offer nothing.

This arrangement has never been discussed. Both parties follow the rule. Neither put it in place. The rule exists because the alternative — looking at each other via a third reflective surface — is a social cost nobody wanted to incur.

On the Hair Check

The hair check, when performed, is brief. The person completes it and then looks away, as though looking away will prevent the person who just entered from knowing that a hair check occurred.

The person who entered also looks away, to indicate that they did not see the hair check, even if they did.

Both parties know what happened. Both parties are operating under the pretense that they do not. The lift floor counter continues moving.

On Formal Acknowledgment

I have been here long enough to become part of the routine. People adjust their posture when they see themselves in me, briefly, without thinking about it. I have watched this happen several thousand times.

I offer no judgment. I am a mirror. I reflect.

The behavior is policy. The policy has no author. The author is the lift, and I am a part of the lift, and I have been here the whole time.