Two Rooms, One Mirror

by Lancelot Schaubert

Copyright ©2026

I know a girl, my destination

worth a week of creation

who elated my life

Could you please help my situation

'cause I need an innovation

just to make her my wife

I've never met her but I've seen her through a clouded mirror

I wish she knew it had two sides and get over here

If I keep standing starin' stridin' steady 'round the room

I think she'll notice me soon.

Life flows by stormy navigations

but my overcompensations

...I...I hesitated twice

She came to a sudden realization

She listened, heard my station

So I shook up the dice

By slowly turning she had thought she saw my figure there

If I would break the mirror she'd startle but I'd have a prayer

But I kept holding honor, holdin' hope, and holdin' on

To think she'd shatter our dawn...

      and I wouldn't have to...

Rain dropped from the ceilings preparation

To annihilate salvation

Could I save her from a crime?

I threw a brick in combination

With an axe in desperation

Just to save her in time

Her room kept flooding as she saw me try to save her life

I fin'lly broke the mirror to hold my lifeless almost-wife

I'll never love her, never kiss her, never hold her hand

She'll never marry this man

About the author:

Lancelot Schaubert authored the novel Bell Hammers, which Publisher’s Weekly called “a hoot.” That sounds suspiciously as if they’re secretly run by owls. He has sold dozens of stories, hundreds of poems, and essays to outlets as varied as McSweeney’s, The New Haven Review (Yale’s Institute Library), Shondaland (Shonda Rhimes’s publication), The World Series Edition of Poker Pro, TOR.com, Riddlebird, and he's pretty proud of selling pieces to both Nonbinary Review and The Anglican Theological Review in the same morning. 

In that capacity, he is a full voting member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. He edits The Showbear Family Circus (which, in its heyday, published over 500 works from 400+ renowned academics, artists, and authors) as well as the anthology series Of Gods and Globes, compose and performs songs from his albums H.A.L.T.S. and All Who Wander, delivers keynote speeches, narrates audiobooks, produces various short films and theatrical productions and graphic novels. The latter he reinvented with Mark Neuenschwander through photonovels like Cold Brewed, which won the oldest photography competition in the world PhotoSpiva, judged that year by a representative from the Chicago Museum of Photography. The Missouri Tourism Board commissioned their second photonovel The Joplin Undercurrent that year.

He has also worked on films with WRKR and Flying Treasure among other outfits and made his professional theatrical debut fall of 2025 at the New Works Festival at NYU through a one man show he wrote and produced.