Referring to the Japanese word kaidan, which can mean scary story or staircase, the production "is a metaphor for my reflection to the staircase of human ambition," as Ms. Garnica described it in her program notes.
With each fragment of living up there, I stand in front of the "mirror," waiting for my reflection to tell me what feels right, what needs tailoring, what to discard.
Except, possibly, for my own reflection staring back at me, fish-mouthed in terror, as a masked axe killer slowly approaches from behind.
Not quickly, not broadly, and usually not for very long, but my reflection in the monitor screen did occasionally grin back at me for a second or two, and that was unusual.
My long curly red hair, my trademark, was chopped off and when I saw my reflection for the first time, I wept.
As I stare at myself in the mirror, I can't help but regret the recent flurry of nights on the piss that I've indulged and the 3am kebabs and pizzas and chips and the fact that I've been paying £15.99 a month for a gym membership that my reflection quite blatantly proves is all but redundant at this point.
(For more, read my reflections on death in "Lessons from a Medina Graveyard").
In early 2011, I wrote a feature for the Guardian sharing my reflections on the life-threatening illness cystic fibrosis (CF) as I counted down to my 40th birthday.
We are really asking ourselves, "how does this new day and how do these choices that I will make today fit into my plan for my life?" Of course, reflection without action is no more productive than action without reflection.
Was I merely looking for my own jobless, childlike reflection in the water?
