It was another Monday. Unlike the lucky ones who got to work from home, Sheila had to commute every Monday for 45 minutes on the R train into the office, where she was belittled and disparaged by her boss daily. She had complained to HR many times, but they could do nothing as her boss, Ms. Shon, was the highest earner in the company. In the reflection of the fluorescent subway car window, black as night, but like a mirror, she saw a new wrinkle etched into her brow every day. She considered getting bangs to cover them up, as she could not afford Botox. She wondered if she could pull them off.
Her one escape was her local watering hole. The Corner Bar was situated at the end of her street and right next to the subway station. She would stop there every day after work for two glasses of white wine before returning to her railroad apartment and her weird roommate, Lucy. Lucy was a sturdy woman, obsessed with hockey, with a lazy eye, and did not like doing her dishes, so much so she kept them in the refrigerator all week, until, Sundays, when she gloved up and took over the kitchen dancing and singing to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” on repeat, while scrubbing the crust and grime off Sheila’s favorite Fishes Eddy plates.
The bar was quiet, and clean. The bartender, Alex, was handsome and kind but not overly friendly or lascivious. It was the only place that felt like home to her. That Monday was like any other. Nothing special had happened, except for the angry texts from Lucy about using all the hot water that morning and later in the afternoon asking if she knew where she put her Vagisil cream and that it was expensive.
One other odd thing had happened on her way to the bar. On the train, some man had come up behind her. This wasn’t new. Men had come up behind her lots of times; in fact, she joked that any commute she completed without being molested was a successful one. But this man stood behind her, staring at her in the window reflection, as if seeing all her wrinkles, her mistakes, not just from that day but from her entire life up to that very moment. He looked hollow and yet keen. Like he wanted something from her. Sheila was uncomfortable and against all her better judgment was about to turn around and tell him to leave her alone. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath for courage. Upon opening them, he was gone, and nowhere to be found. It was like he vanished into thin air.
Sheila shook it off. Men vanished all the time—usually into the next car to bother someone younger and better looking. She stepped off the train, climbed the stairs, and let the familiar neon glow of The Corner Bar sign pull her forward like a lighthouse on a foggy night for the moderately depressed ships to come in.
Inside, everything was as it should be. Alex polishing a glass. The two old men arguing about whether Staten Island should be sawed off and pushed into the sea. The faint smell of bleach, urine, and lime. Sheila exhaled for the first time all day.
“Rough one?” Alex asked, already pouring her usual.
“Just Monday,” she said, sliding onto her stool.
But when she glanced at the mirror behind the bar—the one that reflected the bottles in perfect rows—she froze. The man from the train was standing directly behind her. Same hollow eyes. Same too-still posture. Except, when she turned around, the bar was empty. Just the old men, Alex, and a fruit fly doing laps around the lime wedges.
She looked back at the mirror. He was closer now.
“Alex,” she whispered, “do you see—”
But Alex was staring at her with a strange expression, like he was trying to remember something important about her and couldn’t quite place it.
“You okay, Sheila?” he asked. “You look… different.”
She forced a laugh. “Just tired.”
But the mirror man was now right over her shoulder, his mouth near her ear. His lips didn’t move, but she heard him anyway—felt him, like a thought that wasn’t hers.
You’ve done it. You wasted it.
She blinked hard. “What?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything.”
Sheila stood abruptly, knocking her knee on the barstool. The mirror man didn’t flinch. He simply tilted his head, studying her with a kind of clinical disappointment.
She fled into the bathroom, splashed water on her face, and stared at her reflection. The light above hummed. Her wrinkles looked deeper. Her eyes looked older. And behind her—no man. Just the stall door, slightly ajar.
She exhaled shakily.
When she stepped back into the bar, everything had shifted by a degree. The lights seemed dimmer. The air thicker. The old men were gone. Alex was wiping the same spot on the counter, over and over, like he’d been doing it for hours.
“Your wine’s getting warm,” he said without looking up.
Sheila sat. She didn’t want to look at the mirror again, but she couldn’t help it.
This time, she didn’t see the man.
She saw herself.
But older. Much older. Hair thin. Skin gray. Eyes hollow. Reflection-Sheila lifted her hand and pressed it to the glass from the inside, as if trapped behind it.
Sheila’s real hand trembled on the bar.
Alex finally looked at her. “You sure you’re okay?”
Sheila swallowed. “Do you… ever feel like… someone’s watching you?”
Alex shrugged. “Only on Mondays.”
She tried to laugh, but her throat was tight. She looked back at the mirror.
Her older reflection was smiling now.
And behind that reflection—just barely visible in the dark—stood the man from the train, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, as if he’d been there for years.
