One of my earliest memories is asking my mom to borrow an old Hallmark music box that played this song. It was important to me, though I couldn’t explain why. I’d listen to it over and over again, long past the point of annoyance to everyone. Sometimes at night, when I was scared, I’d listen to it to help me sleep. It has a sad, but sweet melody. At about 2:00 it has the proper timing, then very quickly starts to unwind. It becomes sort of haunting, which is most likely why I remember it. It was lost for many years. I have some memory of finding it once in my early teen years. I took it apart, played some with the mechanism, then lost it again. Who knows where those things go when they’re gone. I suppose it’s rotting in some garbage pile now, but there’s a possibility it may be buried in our old yard.
What do you see when you look into a funhouse mirror? Another “you” staring out at you beneath the surface of the glass? Maybe you are really just one of a whole army of such “you"s, none knowing for sure what side of the glass he falls on. Maybe the “you” you are now is just another picture frozen in time; something separate and distinct from all your past and future selves. Always dying, always being born; every thought and action carving its mark forever into the lines of your face and body.
Now imagine an app on your phone that would let you peer into that funhouse — would let you see those possibilities, those infinite “you"s that could have been. That will be?
Well, particularly those possibilities that involve you growing a beard, dying your hair, looking like a douchebag, or getting really old.
