Neo Mirror – Opening Chapters

1

THE NEO MIRROR

Anil Choudhry knew that no moving parts and a relatively flat design meant escape from poverty. His determination—his obsession—had cost him everything. So here he was, all alone in his government sponsored work-unit applying his moulding machinery to the formula and materials that should produce a near as damn it flat section of mirror, two feet by three.

He waited the three minutes required from the air-pressured thermoforming compression moulding machine that baked his silicone-plastic-glass product and then pressed the release button. A hiss breathed out of the machine as the shiny steel-rimmed lid raised high in the air. An oily, plastic smell of something new filled the work-unit—Choudhry’s own unique mirror, what he called his neo mirror.

Choudhry lifted the mirror from the machine with all the due care and attention of a mid-wife lifting a baby. His oven gloves protected him from the heat still in the machine, still in the mirror. Shuffling carefully over to his main workbench, he clipped the mirror into position on the testing frame. Now came the moment of truth. His heart racing, he threw off his gloves and started to peel away the protective dark opaque plastic film coating.

“Come on, come on…” he muttered quite loudly. Being so lonely, he talked to himself as a matter of routine, and often argued too.

“Oh, it’ll never work, you fool,” said his bickering alter ego inquisitor.

“Yes, it will; it’s a simple thing to build based on a simple but brilliant idea.”

“We’ll see…” finished his alter ego.

Choudhry yanked off the very last bit of desperately grasping plastic film…

He stepped back and looked in the mirror.

Faultless! His heart burst with pride. He could see himself perfectly! His reflection was crystal clear, as good as other mirrors—but this mirror was different. It was a mirror every man, woman and child would want to look at themselves in. As for cats and dogs, he had no idea how they might react. And he had proved with this prototype that it could be manufactured very cheaply.

“YES! YES! You beauty! I’ve done it!” He hollered, dancing like a teenager on speed.

“Yippee! You have, Anil my boy. I knew you could do it,” said his alter ego, congratulating Choudhry.

“Aha! You never thought for a minute I would succeed. You thought I’d be back signing on for unemployment benefit once again. But no! I’ve done it! I’ve bloody done it!”

“Yes, Anil. But don’t swear. You don’t need to anymore. You’ll be a millionaire the moment you announce this invention to the media.”

“Yes, I know. Look how bright the reflection is. And the mirror’s a fair size. It’s under a quarter of an inch thick. Just look at the effect!” remarked Choudhry saluting—and no mirror had ever saluted back in such a way before.

Choudhry looked at his watch.

“Nine o’clock! It’ll be dark by now. Must get home.”

“Yes, Anil, we will sleep on it. A sleep the like of which we have never experienced before. We’ve been up for the last two nights. We’re so tired.”

Choudhry grabbed his framed neo mirror, wrapped it in a towel, and swept home on a wave of jubilation home through the evening streets of Cambridge, England, to his dilapidated bedsit on Victoria Road.

Choudhry slept well for the first time for as long as he or his alter ego could remember. Waking up, he couldn’t wait to brush his teeth and comb his hair in his specially designed mirror. And he did just that. Then after a good breakfast and with the clock hitting 11.00 am he donned his best suit, put his two-hundred and seventy-five pounds life savings in his pocket, gutted the landlord’s armchair cushion to use its foam as protection for the two by one foot mirror, and then left his bedsit knowing he was unlikely to ever have to live in it again. He made tracks for Cambridge railway station.

2

TRAIN JOURNEY TO LONDON

IT WAS A LONG WALK, but force of habit meant a bus or a taxi was unconsidered. Anyway, it was a beautiful warm mid-September day and Choudhry wanted to breathe in and savour every inch of his new life.

“Cheap Super-Saver London Return please,” said Choudhry to the old bespectacled man behind the glass ticket office booth window.

“Sorry, sir, they can only be ordered 24 hours in advance. I can do you an Ordinary Return?”

“How much is that?”

“Fifty-five pounds and fifty pence, sir.”

“What! People pay those sorts of prices?”

“Business men pay a lot more for first-class tickets, sir,” said the man, drumming his skeletal fingers impatiently.

“Uh, okay.” Choudhry felt he was being robbed as he reluctantly handed over sixty pounds in six ten-pound notes and scooped the change.

He turned away from the ticket office booth and headed to the platform with his alter ego, whispering: “It doesn’t matter, Anil, you can afford it now.”

Half an hour later, Choudhry stepped off the platform and on to the London train and took a seat opposite a smart suited businessman with only a table separating them. His own suit was not so smart as it was over ten years old and only still fitted because he never had enough money to get himself any fatter than he was on the day he bought it for his sister’s wedding. He meticulously placed the foam bundled mirror on the overhanging luggage trays. Fortunately, the train was half-empty and there was plenty of room for his mirror.

“What do you have up there, a bomb!” laughed the businessman. An unusual statement given that in these highly charged political days, people did sometimes bring bombs on trains with the intention of blowing them to Kingdom come—along with themselves on some occasions.

Choudhry narrowed his eyes suspiciously, wondering if the man was hiding a sense of paranoia, or worse still, racial prejudice. After all, Choudhry was dark skinned of Indian descent and the businessman was a blue-eyed milk white indigenous Englishman. Perhaps he really did think it was a bomb, and he was fishing for clarification.

“Yes,” replied Choudhry, “in its way it certainly is a bomb, to the world of mirrors.”

“What?”

“It’s a mirror unlike any other.” Choudhry smiled proudly. “My neo mirror.”

“Hey, a mirror’s a mirror,” said the businessman shrugging his shoulders.

The train chose that moment to shudder and pull itself out of Cambridge.

“You think so?” said Choudhry. He could see that the businessman was nervous. Looking up at the tawdry exposed foam sticking over the overhanging luggage tray, Choudhry could see that perhaps it did look suspicious. He thought that if he whipped out a mobile phone, the businessman would have a heart attack, because everyone knew that these bombs were often detonated with signals from mobile phones.

“I will show you, sir, that all the mirrors you have ever seen do not compare with mine.”

Choudhry took down the bundled foam and placed it on the table interposed between himself and the businessman. He smiled at the businessman in an attempt to reassure him that it wasn’t a bomb. Unfortunately, years of next to zero social interaction made Choudhry’s smile appear Draculian at best, and the businessman grew pasty faced and beads of sweat formed on his forehead like morning dew. Nevertheless, Choudhry untied the parcel string that was securing the foam around the mirror. He plucked out the framed mirror and held it reversed to his chest, like a mother protecting a newborn child.

“Are you ready to see it yet, sir?” said Choudhry.

Then his alter ego added: “I don’t think he is. Look, he’s taken to reading his newspaper.”

This caused a confused look on the face of the businessman who looked briefly over the top of his newspaper.

“You think I’m mad, don’t you, sir?” added Choudhry. He could see it in the businessman’s face.

“Perhaps you are,” said the businessman.

“Well, I think when you see into my neo mirror, you will see into the dividing line between a genius and a madman. Are you ready to see which kind of man I am, sir?”

“Oh twaddle, just get on with it, the whole thing’s nuts,” exploded the businessman with annoyance, almost ripping his newspaper down its middle as he straightened it out tightly, his eyes competing between his newspaper and Choudhry’s mirror.

Dramatically, Choudhry whipped the mirror around with panache, excited to see what the response would be to his remarkable invention—his neo mirror…

“Ha ha ha!” laughed the businessman deliriously. “It’s just an ordinary mirror. I’ll tell you this: you’re not a genius.” The businessman folded his newspaper, grabbed his case, and quickly shot away in a fit of laughter, presumably to find another carriage.

“No, wait a minute, you don’t understand,” pleaded Choudhry. But the businessman just swung back the flat of his hand without looking back and disappeared down the aisle.

Choudhry looked hurt by the businessman’s rejection, like a pupil whose up-all-night homework had been flung back in his face without even being marked. “Don’t let that trivial episode disappoint you, Anil. He didn’t look long enough to understand. The BBC will be bowled over and this businessman will see you on the news tonight, and what a fool he will feel.”

“True,” said Choudhry, nervously bobbing his head up and down for comfort. “True.”

Choudhry repacked his mirror, leaving the package on the table in front of him. He hardly noticed the odd looks he and his package were getting from the other passengers as the carriage quickly emptied itself.

Twenty minutes into the journey, the ticket inspector burst into the carriage and bustled past Choudhry, giving his package a furtive look.

“Hey! Don’t you want to check my ticket? It cost me fifty-five pounds and fifty pence!” said Choudhry, waving his ticket angrily at the departing ticket inspector.

The ticket inspector did not even look back.

“Cheek!” snapped Choudhry, aggrieved.

“Cheek!” echoed his alter ego.

For the rest of the journey, Choudhry daydreamed about his impending TV appearance. All the people who thought of him as a loser would see just how wrong they had been. His mother, brothers and sisters would see he was not the failure of the family, but its greatest success. Mahreen, the love of his life…she would come back to him. She would see he was not a fool. A dreamer, but not a fool. All of them would see he was a man of substance. Respect. He would, at last. be respected.

Finally, the train snaked into Liverpool Street railway station.