I made my decision after I had washed my hands in the bathroom sink, after tossing the used paper towels in the overflowing garbage can, while standing and looking at myself in the mirror. How many people had this particular mirror reflected before me? There was a crack in the bottom right-hand corner of this mirror, which looked like an old and jagged scar, and I wondered how it got there. Perhaps it resulted from an act of violence, or maybe it came from a simple accident, a careless and simple mistake. I wondered why no one had repaired it, and imagined the owner of this jazz club, counting out crumpled dollar bills on top of a desk, being unable to repair the mirror in the bathroom this month, but maybe next. I thought about how the crack gave this mirror character, a sense of being worn-in. This crack, this fracture along the mirror´s pristine surface, actually made it unique, one of a kind in the entire world. Beneath all the stars, of all of the jazz clubs everywhere, there was only this specific bathroom mirror with the crack in the bottom-right corner. Maybe damage can increase the value of a thing, I thought. Maybe the scars and the cracks help distinguish us from one another. Maybe the crack made this mirror special.
 
4887 words (MF)
 
Cover art by Robert Flynt
@robertflyntfoto