"Wingman"

Title: "Wingman"
Prompt: Parrot
Brigit's Flame February 2013 week four
Word Count/ warnings:  962 words, rated PG
by Graham Smith

          I looked at myself in the mirror, and only then did I realize just how filthy it was.  Good lord; when had anyone in the house last washed it?  Had it ever been washed?  It at least hadn’t been washed this year; no doubt someone’s mom had come to clean house over the summer … it had probably been cleaned, then.  At least that what was I assumed, since when I returned to the house every fall for school, things that had collected grime over the course of the year usually seemed to have cleaned themselves.


            The scatter-brained guy in the mirror looked back at me.  He wasn’t tall, but he wasn’t short, either.  He wasn’t really overweight, but he was a little soft, without much muscle tone.  Definitely someone who spent more time in the library than the gym.  His hair was sandy-blonde, longish, and hadn’t been brushed yet today.

            Lowering my eyes from the disgusting mirror (I was never going to be able to look at it the same way again, at least until the next time it was Windexed), I opened the old, leather-bound book I had brought into the bathroom.  Normally I didn’t need reading material in the bathroom; there were always enough automotive magazines and back issues of Maxim to keep me entertained for a few minutes. But this wasn’t just reading material.  This was my ticket out of my rut.

            “Oou-mah … oou-mah ….” I read from the book, trying to pronounce the foreign-looking words using the pronunciation guide I had scribbled on notebook paper.  The old woman in the antique store had been certain that the book was an old book of spells, and even more certain that the book was in some language called Polangi.  Even though she didn’t speak a word of polangi.  The University Library only had one Polangi-to-English dictionary, and because it was in the reference section I of course couldn’t check it out.
          
            “Hey, Brian!  Are you coming, or what?”  Mike, one of my three roommates, called through the door.  “You don’t sound too good.”
          
            I faked a cough.  “Oh, yeah, man.  I don’t think I’m going to make it out to the club tonight.  I’ve got, like … the flu or something.”  To further sell the story, I groaned pathetically.

            “Eew, gross,” Mike said.  “Well, be sure to Clorox that whole room when you’re done.  Me, Dylan, and Danny don’t want to catch it.  Anyway, hope you feel better.  See you later!”

            I listened for my three roommates to leave the house, and then turned back to the book. As much as I liked my friends, none of them were very good wingmen.  When it came to girls, their skills always seemed to work with each other, but never me.  I had been two months since I had gotten a girl’s number at a bar, and even longer since those call-backs had actually lead to a second date.  I was sick of the dry spell.
            So, I figured, if none of the other guys were sufficient wingmen, I’d just have to be my own wingman.

            My eyes flicked back and forth between the old spellbook and the sheet of notebook paper. “Oou-mah … oou-mah … kwe-kwe … nam-ee-dah …,” I read, even though I felt more like an idiot the more unintelligible syllables I read.  “Oou-mah, kwe-kwe, nam-ee-dah … Oou-mah, kwe-kwe, nam-ee-dah!”

            To finish the spell, I dipped my thumb into a spot of blood on the side of my neck, where I had nicked myself shaving minutes before, and smeared it on the mirror over my reflection’s forehead.
          
            For almost a minute, nothing happened, and I felt like a moron for missing my chance to go to the club with my roommates.  Then my reflection suddenly winked, and I was positive that both my eyes stayed open.

            My reflection leaned closer to the mirror and pressed his palms on the basin.  Then he reached across his sink, past his faucet, and placed his palm onto my faucet, like he was testing a theory.  He climbed upon his sink, placed his hands onto my side of the basin, and crawled across the sink.  As he passed through my side of the mirror, the smear of my blood came with him, across his forehead.

            “Holy … holy crap!”  I cried.  “I can’t believe it worked!  Like, I can’t believe it worked!”  My reflection clambered down from the sink.  “I mean, look at you!  You’re me!”
          
            The reflection wore the exact same jeans and club-ready shirt that I wore, except that his were slightly spotted from passing through the dirty mirror.  There was a slightly me-shaped clean space in the mirror, now.  “Well, not completely,” he said, dampening his fingers in the sink and scrubbing the bloody thumbprint from his face.  “Think of me like Cinderella’s pumpkin.  I’m only here till midnight.”
          
            “Midnight?!” I cried, checking my cell phone.  “But it’s already ten thirty!”

            The reflection straightened his shirt in the mirror.  “Then we’d better get to work, hadn’t we?  You only have an hour and a half to get some random chick’s phone number!”

            We left the bathroom and headed for the front door.  “Well, I don’t think I just want some random chick’s number,” I fretted.  “I mean, I’d like her to be pretty.  And interesting.  And smart.”

            “Please,” my reflection said to me condescendingly.  “I know your type.  Who knows your type better than you?”

            I took my car keys from the coffee table and opened the door.  “Okay, so here’s our story.  We’re identical twins.  You have a girlfriend, and mine just dumped me, so you’re trying to cheer up your poor brother.”

            My reflection followed me out the door. “Yeah, that’s perfect.  Chicks dig identical twins.”