Almost thirty-five years ago, two writers, Colin Bushell and Eddie Teach (not his real name) set out on a long journey to discover the whereabouts, the wherewithal and the where-the-hell-are-we concepts associated with a realisation that we may or may not be our true selves, or just a manifestation of the reflections we see in mirrors.

It all began in Swinnerton’s Café in the King Street Mall, Hammersmith, West London. It was a Tuesday, about 11.32am; so theoretically a little too early for lunch and a little too late for breakfast. Still, there they were.

Alongside a wall-long mirror, one of them said, “What if they are real in there, and we are actually their reflection?” It – like most of what followed – made no sense. However, buoyed by a motivation that may have been influenced by illicit substances, they decided to resign from their jobs, and set off an adventure around the world in search of what life would be like, if we didn’t accept everything the way it had always been written or shown, or drawn, or carved into stone, or scraped into a wall, or spoken, or mimed, or  demonstrated using Auslan (although, typically, Colin and Eddie believed that to be a character in The Lion King).

Anyway, I digress.

What followed was the creation of a multitude of stories: some insightful, some preposterous and some downright nonsensical. The creation of these stories, and the detail of their ongoing travels was documented through the medium of diary entries. The entries revealed an initial exuberance for the idea, but were soon replaced with fear and loathing; and they never even reached Las Vegas. The paranoia and acrimony that began to permeate all of their writings reached a head in northern Russia.

“Eddie was crushed – glacially slowly, so slowly, in fact, that he was able to write two novels and a libretto – by the Academy of Sciences Glacier on Komsomolets Island in Severnaya Zemlya.”

Colin vanished for several years, with only scant clues as to his whereabouts, although there was a suggestion that he had joined the circus and was performing with penguins in the small town of Pak Nga on the edge of the Nam Ou River in Laos.

That is until now.

I recently received a package with more diary entries, and more Mirror World stories. They keep coming and I have decided to document them here. It appears that Colin has started his Mirror World quest up again. The fear and paranoia appear gone and he is free to continue his journey of… something! The journey this time began in Brisbane, Australia and he has a new companion, Bastian Bierenbroodspot, a young artist who is bringing Colin’s bizarre observations into some sort of focus.

As to whether it will last, you must read on, for my contribution will be limited from this point on, with perhaps some interspersions at a point where the journey – almost inevitably – goes off at a tangent.

In the meantime, sit back and enjoy; if that is at all possible.