I saw a lot of myself in the mirror in those days.

Not intentionally, at first; the face had peeked momentarily into view every morning in the steam-covered mirror, then the little segments of hand as they flashed by the wardrobe mirror picking out socks and boxers and jeans and shirts; perhaps the feet would be glimpsed for a fraction of a second as those items of clothing were put on, taken off, and put on again. But in those first days of quarantine a flash of whimsy compelled the wardrobe, replete with full-length IKEA mirror, to be moved to face the short end of the bed, such that I would be made to behold myself a minimum of twice a day: once in the morning, backlit by the east window which had always let a little too much light in; once in the evening, amorphous in shadow that foreshortened every limb and reduced me into a thick black smudge.

The shops closed and the hospitals burst and I came to enjoy the animation of my reflected companion. The owner did not think itself unbeautiful then. It spent a little more time picking out the clothes for the day’s video call or grocery run, admiring the way the bone of my shin curved, or the weight of my thigh tensed solidly to support my tummy, my buttock, my chest. These were all moments of physicality I had hitherto ignored. There was an architecture to myself, I realised. As the streets emptied and the stock markets slid ever closer to oblivion there was a private renaissance that was taking place between myself and the glass. Every morning I dwelled a little longer with myself and moved myself in conversation with my double in a celebration of form unknown perhaps even my owner.

This was perhaps in the third or fourth week of isolation where it became quite certain to everyone that the pandemic was not going to end. I attended video calls. I cooked and ate. I wrote emails. I conducted research and put together reports at a pace no slower than before. The only difference now was the new sentiment of no longer being alone. For now my double spoke, cooked, ate, and wrote beside myself in silent unison. I was not used to this manner of company. The reflection held space constantly, yet was unintrusive to a fault, and conducted its actions with utmost sympathy with my every predicament.

I was happy, then, though again I do not think the owner knew that I was. This was no euphoria nor lightness of being; I am not the owner nor the mind. But I do believe I held myself with something like a surety of motion; an ease of inertia; as if when I moved or rested, I had always intended to do so, backed by the equal and opposite action of my double.

I came to crave busyness, really. Fatigue did not set in nearly as easily in this state. I could have gone on typing and clicking and making faces at the webcam forever; such was the ease that I had felt in executing my duties. I felt the weather and the conditions of my surroundings more keenly, and soon found my owner executing small improvements all around the room: picking up hair with a lint roller, wiping down the mirror, dusting the top of the wardrobe that had not been touched in months. The smallness of my environment contributed to this enriched feeling, as if there was fewer moving parts to fixate on. I secretly hoped that this change in affairs would last forever. I relished in the calls and reports and the endless, endless emails. I relished in the meals that grew simpler by the day. And the silence that punctuated the moments in between--oh, what unparalleled bliss!

There came a time when I started to experience strange things in the night. A jolting of the fan or some loud animal downstairs would make me temporarily aware of my being some hours after the mind had gone to sleep; in those terrifying, still moments I would look to the reassuring presence of the reflection and be calmed by its own placidity. These moments of awareness did not grow more and more frequent as the quarantine drew on, but they did grow more and more stark. My proprioception, normally quietened and fuzzy in those hours, would sharpen so intensely to a point that I was sure the owner had inadvertently occupied me with some challenging acrobatic task in its dreams. But the mind did not stir, and the room remained dark, such that I came to associate these moments with a sensation I had not known since my early infanthood: existence divorced starkly from will.

In the mornings the owner would put on music by the mirror and dance. The daily tasks of clothing, food, and hygiene became ritual in every magical sense of the word. Preparations could be made for the sacred enjoying of things. It seemed as the owner, too, was gradually charmed by their own solitude. The ease of motion I had felt in my own double's presence seemed to finally surface into the consciousness of the mind. Their writing became more circuitous, more self-reflexive, as if thought itself had come to relish in a double of its own, and I felt my presence being held in video calls with a growingly attentive posture not to the faces and voices of others, but the virtual presence of my own.

I remember in some book or another there was a fictional culture who abhorred the doppelganger or mirrored form, for it increased the number of forms of humanity, which they found repulsive. I can safely say that that is no longer true. If nature abhors a vacuum, then this law be the opposite. Solitude had made us--I, the mind, the owner, the reflection--euphorically and affirmatively real.

The last and final change began on a sober Sunday evening, when we had decided to retire early after a comforting day of Drambuie and binge-watching. The mind had slumbered, relinquishing all awareness and control. I found myself hanging on despite myself, transfixed on the double in the mirror. Eyes refused to close; mouth hung open like a trap. What was the opposite of claustrophobia? There was a jolt, and I found myself rising to meet myself, feet planting one in front of the other before the full length of my reflection, twirling to a beat I had not yet entirely forgotten (or maybe it had been recently composed for me without my knowledge) and I danced on my fingers and toes out of the window into the easy night.