Mirror and Lamp Art

An infinity of moments.

            In the middle of the Gallery there was just a mirror labeled, “High Art.” I approached it cynically. Then I glanced back and forth from my reflection and the absurd price tag.

            “What makes this so special?” I asked. The artist had apparently been standing in the room (it wasn’t a high end gallery, just one that was also a boutique in the city. Plenty of art passes through, although some people would have a hard time calling it art).

            “This is mine,” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at me then letting it fall into a pocket she’d sewn into her sun dress. She seemed strange, to be sure. Flamboyantly colored with lots of frilly things.

            “How can you call this art?” I challenged, turning back to my reflection. “I see this everyday.”

            “Because, this mirror shows you who you used to be.”

            “I just see me,” I corrected her.

            “No you see who you were twice-the-speed-of-light-between-yourself-and-the-mirror ago.”

            “That’s not even a moment,” I said.

            “That’s an infinite amount of moments actually,” she corrected me.

            “It’s still just a mirror,” I said.

            “What if there was a mirror behind this lamp?” she said.

            “There’s not.”

            “There could be. Watch,” she said. She grabbed her other piece, a lamp that had been on a pedestal, and placed it behind. The lamp had been pretentiously labeled “The Soul.”

            “Now it’s just a lamp behind a mirror,” I said.

            “But what if the lamp could shine just a bit through the mirror, so that the mirror not only reflected what it had seen, but could also cast its own light onto what it sees.”

            “That’s just absurd,” I said.

            “Watch,” she said. This time she grabbed the light and brought it back to where I was standing.

            “I’m waiting,” I said.

            She hurled the lamp as hard as she could at the mirror and it shattered right through it so that for a moment, as the lamp went out, the last of the light left the bulb and ricocheted all over the room while at the same time fractures of mirror turned and shot refracted light everywhere and the light went dark. 

Author's Note

Please ask questions. Question everything.

Reviews

[Marie]

That's called performance art.

[Epipsychologist]

I'm thinking of turning this into a miniature stage play. I think it'd be fun to have someone throw a lamp at a mirror and call it art.

[Marie]

I read this piece over, and I think it would work as a play.