Mirrorland - Tealy and the Crew

Tealy had been planning the Disney World trip for two months.

He was twenty minutes into his first day, standing in Magic Kingdom with a churro, looking at Cinderella's Castle in the early morning light before the crowds got bad, having what he would privately describe as a genuinely good moment, when his phone buzzed.

An ad.

"Why go to Disney World when you can visit MIRRORLAND? Alabama's PREMIER theme park experience! Fun for the whole family! Only $12 admission!"

There was a photo. It appeared to be a parking lot with two rides visible in the background. One of the rides was a carousel. The other was unclear but appeared to be stationary.

Tealy looked at the ad.

Looked at Cinderella's Castle.

Closed the ad.

Ate his churro.

---

The second ad came forty minutes later while he was in line for Space Mountain.

"MIRRORLAND: We also have a carousel!! Visit us in Huntsville, Alabama!!"

Tealy stared at the exclamation points.

Huntsville, Alabama was approximately eleven hours from Orlando, Florida.

His phone's location services were on. His phone knew exactly where he was. His phone was aware, with GPS precision, that he was standing inside Walt Disney World, one of the largest and most visited theme parks on the planet, and had decided that this was the correct moment to suggest he drive eleven hours to a parking lot with a carousel in Huntsville, Alabama.

He opened the ad settings and tried to indicate he was not interested.

The next ad, four minutes later:

"Still at Disney World? MIRRORLAND has shorter lines!! (carousel wait time currently 0 minutes!!)"

The carousel wait time being zero minutes was doing a lot of work in that sentence and none of it was the work Mirrorland intended.

---

He called DumbDird out of habit and the immediate need to tell someone who would respond at full volume.

The phone rang twice.

"Durr, hey Tally!"

"I keep getting ads for a theme park in Alabama—"

"DURR, MIRRORLAND?!"

Tealy stopped walking. "You know about Mirrorland."

"DURR, YEAH, I SAW THE ADS TOO, TALLY—"

"You're not at Disney World."

"Durr, no—"

"Then why are you getting the ads."

"Durr, I don't know, Tally, but the carousel looks really good—"

"DumbDird the carousel is the only ride—"

"DURR, AND THE OTHER ONE—"

"The other one looks broken—"

"DURR, TALLY, ARE YOU HAVING FUN THOUGH—"

"I was," Tealy said. "I was having fun. I had a churro. I was looking at the castle. It was fine. And then Alabama found me."

"DURR, THAT'S ACTUALLY REALLY FUNNY TALLY—"

"It's not funny."

"Durr, it's a little funny—"

"It's not—" Tealy paused. Someone had just walked past him in full Goofy ears. "It's a little funny," he admitted.

"DURRRR—"

He hung up and got back in line.

---

The fourth ad came during the Festival of Fantasy parade.

Tealy was watching a genuinely impressive float go by. There was music. There were costumes. There was the full production weight of a corporation that had spent decades perfecting the logistics of joy.

His phone buzzed.

"MIRRORLAND PARADE SEASON IS COMING SOON!! (Date TBD)"

He put his phone in his pocket and watched the parade.

It buzzed again.

"Mirrorland's carousel is OPEN LATE on Fridays!! (until 6 PM!!)"

He turned his phone face down in his pocket.

It buzzed.

He left it.

It buzzed twice more.

He ate a Mickey-shaped ice cream bar and stared at the parade and made a decision to simply be a person at a theme park who did not look at his phone, and this lasted eleven minutes before he checked it again.

Seven Mirrorland ads.

Seven.

In eleven minutes.

One of them was just a photo of the parking lot with no text at all. Just the parking lot. Making its case through imagery alone.

---

He got back to the hotel room at 9 PM.

He had ridden six rides. He had eaten too much. He had watched the fireworks over the castle from a good spot and felt the specific thing you feel watching Disney fireworks which he was not going to describe out loud to anyone ever.

He had also received, by his count, nineteen Mirrorland ads throughout the day.

He dropped onto the bed.

Something in the room shifted.

Specifically, something in his lamp shifted.

He looked at the lamp.

The lamp was on the nightstand. It was a standard hotel lamp. It had a shade and a bulb and a base and was a completely normal lamp that a person could not be inside of because it was a lamp.

"Durr, hey Tally," said the lamp.

Tealy did not move for a long moment.

"DumbDird," he said.

"Durr, yeah?"

"You're in my lamp."

"Durr, yeah."

"How are you in my lamp."

"Durr, I don't know, Tally, I just kind of ended up in here—"

"You didn't get on the plane," Tealy said. He said this carefully and with precision because he needed the sentence to exist in the air before he continued. "I watched the plane door close. You were not on the plane. I have been in Orlando for eleven hours. You did not travel to Orlando."

"Durr, yeah," said DumbDird, from inside the lamp.

"And you're in my lamp."

"Durr, the carousel at Mirrorland looks really good though Tally—"

"DUMBIRD—"

"DURR, I MEAN DUMBD—"

"HOW ARE YOU IN MY LAMP—"

"Durr, I'm not totally sure honestly—"

Tealy stood up and looked at the lamp from close range. It was not a large lamp. It was a standard hotel room lamp. There was no visible method by which a person had entered or could be sustained inside it. And yet.

"Durr, it's a little cramped," DumbDird offered.

"I imagine."

"Durr, but the light's nice."

Tealy sat back down on the bed and put his face in his hands.

Not in despair specifically. In the specific exhaustion of someone who had been at Disney World for eleven hours and received nineteen ads for a parking lot carousel in Alabama and had come back to their hotel room to find their best friend inside a lamp despite not having been on the plane, and was now attempting to integrate all of this into a coherent experience of reality.

"Did you know you were going to be in my lamp," Tealy said into his hands.

"Durr, no," said DumbDird. "Durr, I actually thought I was going to be in your suitcase but then I ended up here."

"You were going to be in my suitcase."

"Durr, yeah."

"That would have also been bad."

"Durr, probably, but then I could've seen the castle, Tally—"

Tealy looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling was normal. The ceiling was a flat white hotel ceiling that had no surprises in it and was not hiding anyone.

"How do you get out," Tealy said.

A pause from the lamp.

"Durr," said DumbDird, "I'm working on that."

---

He called down to the front desk and asked, in the most neutral tone he could manage, if anyone had reported something unusual about the room before his check-in.

The front desk said no, everything was normal, was there an issue with the room?

"No," said Tealy. "The lamp is fine."

"Durr, thanks Tally," said the lamp.

He hung up.

His phone buzzed.

"MIRRORLAND: Visiting Orlando? We're only a short drive away!! (11 hours!!)"

Tealy looked at the ad. Looked at the lamp.

"DumbDird."

"Durr, yeah?"

"Have you been getting Mirrorland ads in the lamp."

A pause.

"Durr, yeah actually, how do they know I'm here—"

"I don't know," said Tealy. "I don't know how they know anything. I don't know how you're in the lamp. I don't know why they think eleven hours is a short drive. I don't know anything anymore."

"Durr, the carousel though—"

"Goodnight DumbDird."

"Durr, goodnight Tally. Durr, can you turn the light off?"

Tealy reached over and turned the lamp off.

"Durr, thanks."

He lay in the dark hotel room in Orlando, Florida, eleven hours from a parking lot carousel in Huntsville, Alabama that had advertised at him nineteen times, and went to sleep.

In the lamp, DumbDird was presumably doing the same.

In the morning, inexplicably, the lamp was empty.

Tealy did not ask.

There was a twentieth Mirrorland ad waiting for him when he woke up.