12:15

I’m in a shopping mall. At least, I think I am. There’s something slightly off about it, though I can’t quite place my finger on it. Nothing is broken, or out of place. If anything, the opposite is true. Everything appears unnervingly perfect. Too clean. Too intentional. As though every surface has been buffed to within an inch of enlightenment. The floors reflect light in a way that feels almost spiritual. Glass storefronts sparkle so brightly I can practically see my aura reflecting back at me. Even the air feels filtered somehow. Cleansed. Almost holy. The kind of air you could bottle, label “Pure Consciousness,” and charge £85 a vial for, in a shop that smells of sandalwood and the kind of regret that doesn’t fully arrive until your card is already tapped. People drift past carrying shopping bags and coffees, completely unbothered. Nobody seems remotely concerned. Which leaves me facing an uncomfortable possibility. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with the mall at all. Perhaps it’s me. Walking beside me is a man I don’t recognise. He must be at least seven feet tall. He really is offensively tall. And no, I’m not just saying that because I am a classified small person of five foot three. Yet somehow his size doesn’t feel intimidating. Quite the opposite, in fact. He has a calm, friendly presence that makes it impossible to worry about anything while standing next to him. Almost comforting. A gentle giant. A guide rather than a stranger. Someone I feel like I’ve known in a life that feels distant to me now. Together, we enter a huge department store. I press the lift button for homeware, but Mr Giant insists we needn’t rush. “We need to explore all the floors one by one,” he says. I gaze up at him, confused. “For maximum shopping experience,” he adds, with a rueful grin. Right. Because I really need men’s clothing. Still, I follow. The store is… otherworldly. The clothes in the store are another level. Funky patterns. Out there. Fashion forward, as those in the industry would say. Bloody expensive. Expensive in a way that doesn’t feel like commerce so much as destiny. Mine, apparently, involves spiritual bankruptcy. I pick up a cardigan and almost choke on my own poverty when I stare down at the price tag. £450. For a bloody cardigan? I turn the label over, half expecting it to include an apology. “Is it spun from gold?” I ask. “High quality,” Mr Giant says, as though this alone justifies the emotional damage of the price tag. “For that price, it should come with a miniature therapist in the pocket.” I put it back. Carefully. In case touching it again incurs additional charges. At the back of the store, I find Mat wandering between rails of clothing, looking flustered and disoriented, as though he entered with purpose but misplaced it somewhere between the chunky knits and the snooty floor staff. “Thank God,” he says when he sees me. “This place is a bit of a minefield.” The relief is immediate, almost physical. And then I see it. The jumper. It isn’t just visually striking. It’s alluring in a way I can’t immediately explain. Beautiful. Strange. Covered in intricate patterns and woven Hamsa hands, protective symbols stitched into the fabric like watchful presences. “You need this jumper,” I say. Mat stands back and admires it for a second. “It is rather spectacular,” he gushes. “Try it on,” I encourage. He starts pulling it on over several other jumpers he is already wearing underneath. I blink. Then blink again. Exactly how many jumpers is this man wearing? Another sleeve appears. And another. He looks like a Russian nesting doll made entirely of knitwear. Every layer reveals yet another slightly smaller Mat. At this point I’m not sure there is a “real Mat” left underneath. He finally gets the jumper on. “Well?” Mat turns slowly. “I think,” he pants. “It makes me look spiritually enlightened.” He is drenched in sweat, mildly delirious, and no longer blinking at a normal human frequency. Honestly, he might be. That’s when I notice the mirror. Just sitting there on a display. Completely ordinary. Completely unremarkable. Which, in this place, somehow feels like the most suspicious thing of all. I pick it up without thinking. It snaps cleanly in half. The sound is surprisingly small. The consequence feels anything but. Seven years bad luck. Fantastic. As if I don’t already possess a backlog of bad luck. I rush back to tell Mat. But he’s gone. The jumper hangs messily on the hanger. Typical Mat. Can’t hang anything up neatly. I call out his name. Nothing. As I walk, another mirror breaks. This one doesn’t feel accidental. It feels deliberate. I stop. A man nearby is folding T-shirts with mechanical precision. “Holy shit,” I say. “That’s fourteen years bad luck.” He nods, and keeps folding. As though I’m either invisible, unstable, or just another track in the store’s looped background music. I try again. “Do you think…” I start, “the rules still apply when you’re… dreaming?” The man stops folding. Looks at me. A long, uncomfortable pause. One that says: Bitch, please take your drama elsewhere. Then returns to his folding, as if nothing happened. That’s when it becomes noticeable. The wrongness. The lighting. The symmetry. The stillness underneath everything. Everything feels too perfect. Too maintained. Too intentional. “Oh.” The feeling lands first. Then the understanding. “Oh shit.” I climb onto a display of folded T-shirts. People look at me. Not alarmed. Just observing, like I’ve deviated slightly from expected behaviour. “I’M DREAMING,” I shout. Nobody reacts. They continue browsing, completely indifferent to the fact a grown woman is now jumping up and down on a pile of T-shirts, stating the bloody obvious. “I’M DREAMING!” I yell again. Mr Giant turns towards me and smiles like a proud parent. “See?” he says. “I told you we shouldn’t rush.” Then — Something changes. Not transformation. Recognition. Like my body has briefly remembered something my mind hasn’t agreed to yet. My feet leave the ground. The display falls away beneath me. A murmur spreads through the store. Heads tilt upwards. Even Mat freezes, looking like a Buddhist onion with layers still left to peel. I rise above the clothing rails. Arms spreading outwards. Christ resurrected. If the Second Coming had secured a part-time position in menswear. The image is ridiculous. The image is magnificent. Somehow, it is both. The mirrors begin to shake. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Glass trembles throughout the store. Shards orbit around me in widening circles. And inside every piece of glass, I see a different face. My face. But not quite mine. Not reflections. Versions that never agreed on a single timeline. One version looks older than I expect. She meets my gaze immediately. Like she has been waiting for this exact moment to continue a conversation we never finished. Another is younger. But already guarded. Like she learned something early and never quite recovered from it. One is laughing. Not at me. At something I haven’t survived yet. Another stops crying the moment she sees me. As if emotion only exists when unobserved. I don’t recognise them. And yet I do. Instantly. Like a name I’ve never spoken aloud but still answer to. Like homesickness for a life I never lived. And then it hits me. The mirrors were never showing me who I am. They were showing me who I could have been. Every broken mirror wasn’t bad luck. It was a division. A life splitting into possibilities. A self becoming selves. The fragments rush together. Cracks seal. Reflections reform. Lives reconnect. And for one impossible, breathtaking moment — I see them all. Every version. Every choice. Every path. Running side by side through time. Separate. Connected. Alive. Then — Holy shit. I feel horny. The universe reveals its deepest secrets and my immediate response is: Yes, fascinating. Noted. But first… Which feels, in hindsight, like an incredibly human reaction to enlightenment. I look around for somewhere “private.” Consider my options. The changing rooms are out. Too many mirrors. I am not repeating that mistake. Behind the overpriced jumpers? Too risky. Toilets? No. There are limits. Even in dreams. Bedding department? Tempting. But somehow that feels like crossing a line. Then I remember something important. Oh, of course. I’m dreaming. I don’t need options. I can just leave. And having achieved enlightenment and somehow lowered the tone in the same breath, I vanish with what little dignity I have left. I am back in my bedroom. Mat is brushing his teeth. The sound of the electric toothbrush travels down the hallway, blissfully unaware that reality has just been rewritten a floor below us. I look down at my watch. 12:15. “Jesus wept,” I say quietly. “Way past my bedtime.” I’d better make this… swift. I get into bed, fully dressed. Because nothing about tonight has earned the right to a costume change. I slide my hands down my jeans… And — Monkey jumps on me. My bastard cat. He settles on my chest and begins purring like a maniac. His eyes glow in the dark. And I swear he winks at me. Actually winks. “…Ah, fuck,” I whisper. Mission wank: aborted. I look at the clock again. 12:15. And then I wake. Properly this time. The room is dark. Still. Normal. Suspiciously normal. For a long time I don’t move. Then I turn towards the clock. And freeze. 12:15. Exactly. Not 12:14. Not 12:16. The same time. As though the dream hasn’t happened inside time at all. As though it had happened somewhere adjacent to it. A neighbouring corridor. A parallel floor. A different department entirely. I lie there listening to the house. Listening to Monkey purring in the dark. And I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere out there — the department store is still running. And I am still inside it… just on a different floor. Mr Giant already waiting by the lift.