Animals That Live in the Mirror

Animals That Live in the Mirror

In one of the volumes of the Letters edificantes et curieuses that appeared in Paris sometime during first half of the eighteeth century, Father Zallinger, of the Company of Jesus, mentioned the possibility of compiling a catalog of the illusions and errors of the common folk of Canton province. In a preliminary listing, he noted that the Fish was an elusive, gleaming creature that no one had ever touched but many people believed they had seen in the depths of mirrors. Father Zallinger died in 1736, and the work begun by his pen remained unfinished; one hundred years later, Herbert Allen Giler took up the interrupted labor. According to Giles, belief in the FIsh is part of a broader myth, which goes back to the legendary age of the Yellow Emperor.
In those days, the world of mirrors and the word of men were not, as they are now, separate and unconnected. They were, moreover, quite different from one another; neither the creatures nor the colors nor the shapes of the two worlds were the same. The two kingdoms - the specular and the human - lived in peace, and one could pass back and forth through mirrors. One night, however, the people of the mirror invaded this world. Their strength was great, but after many bloody battles, the magic of the Yellow Emperor prevailed. The Emperor pushed back the invaders, imprisioned them withim the mirrors, and punished them by making them repeat, as though in a kind of dream, all the actions of their human visitors. He stripped them to mere servile reflections. One day, however, they will throw off that magical lethargy.
The first to awaken shall be the Fish. In the depths of the mirror we shall perceive a faint, faint line, and the color that line will not resemble any other. Then, other forms will begin to awaken. Gradually they will become different from us; gradually they will no longer imitate us; they will brake through the barriers of glass or metal, and this time they will not be conquered. Water-creatures will battle alongside mirror-creatures.
In Yunnan province, people speak not of the Fish but rather the Tiger of the Mirrror. Others believe that before the invasion, we will hear, from the depths of the mirrors, the sound of arms.

(Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings)