Painless

“You got no basis, is the trick of you,” said the thing he had made in the mirror. He had made the thing in the mirror to better see himself, because the mirror showed him perfectly and completely. But that just meant he saw himself kneeling there, a man who had no idea who he was. So he had to change some things, feed a little less into the glass, and that gave him some perspective. A cocked-head tilt view of the world.

“No basis whatsoever. So you drift! Of course you drift. A fish with no fins isn’t going wherever it wants, is it? So there. It goes with the currents. Until a fish with fins comes along, anyway! So there. No basis.” The thing he had made in the mirror paused, and in its eye was a gleam like a scalpel’s edge. “You have to get on something. Because if you have no basis, you need something to go on. Granted, granted,” the thing waved an arm, staving off an objection he had not made. “You won’t be going where you want to go. Where you choose to go! But that wasn’t ever going to be an option, you see, with no basis. At least this way you’ll be going somewhere.” The thing cackled, a short wave against his impassive gaze, and opened its gaping maw in a jagged grin.