Everyone had started by using paper towels and water, which left droplets on the mirror and left everyone unsatisfied. Next came towels from home, but those left a layer of fuzz. After that, everyone brought window cleaner and a squeegee from home and some towels from the gas station, but that system left soap residue.
Everyone sometimes did janitorial work on weekends. That work, everyone realized, once she or he began cleaning the bathroom mirror before her or his regular job, was shoddy.
Everyone consulted with Harvey. Harvey worked in a cubicle on the same floor on the other side of the office building. On weekends, Harvey was everyone’s boss. Harvey had a view of a window that was so clean it appeared not to exist.
“How do you do it,” everyone asked, “make it look so transparent and real?”
“I knock it out,” Harvey said. “I open it, take the glass out of the way, and get rid of the reflection.”
Everyone began sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor before work for ten to twenty minutes. Everyone stared at the mirror, meditated. Still, everyone could not find the clarity for which she or he was looking.
“You’re looking too hard,” Harvey told everyone when she or he asked about it. “You’re focused, but you’re focused on the wrong thing. You have to let clarity--meaning--come to you.”
Everyone sat on the floor and tried to look past the mirror. Everyone saw a person who had aged intolerably in the past year--wrinkles crinkling at the corners of the eyes and along the brow. Everyone was destined for obsolescence. Everyone needed a haircut, a new shirt or blouse--something that would stand out to coworkers, make others take notice of her or him.
Everyone had talked with meaning on the phone. Everyone had seen meaning conveyed to her or him in photographs. And yet, everyone still wasn’t sure what meaning was, was still unable to conjure meaning--get ahold of meaning--in the way that everyone imagined meaning to be.
“You’ve got to introduce me,” everyone told Harvey, finally, in desperation. Harvey knew the meaning of life. Harvey could call on the meaning of life virtually any time he wanted.
“I clean everything,” Harvey said. “Clear it, make the surface shine until I see only me--that is to say, the non-me.”
“I know,” everyone said. “That’s what I’ve been doing.”
“My method doesn’t work for all,” Harvey said. “You have to find your own way.”
Harvey walked to the window that was so clear it appeared to be open.
Everyone stood in his or her spot. Everyone was afraid of heights.
“Come here,” Harvey beckoned.
Everyone didn’t move.
Harvey returned, grabbed everyone just under the arms, his own arm around everyone’s body, and dragged everyone to the window. “Look,” Harvey said. “Look out there.”
Everyone did.
The city teemed beneath them--cars stopping for the light on the corner; people sitting on benches eating lunch, drinking Popsi Cola; others stopping to look in the windows of boutiques; a jacket wafting upward in the wind, then down, then away, to the right, out of view.
“That’s me,” Harvey said. “That’s you. That’s all of us.”
He relaxed his grip.
Everyone backed away.
Harvey did too. And then he jumped.
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