The Boy in the Mirror

Guilt says: I did something bad. Shame says: I am bad. After the public humiliation Simon is flooded by shame — and shame has a terrible property: it turns rage not against the offender but inward, against “the one who allowed it”.

That is why the boy in the mirror is more hateful than Jacob: himself is the only person Simon can reach. The broken mirror is an attempt to destroy not a face but an unbearable feeling. And the “black funnel” — the wish for everything to simply stop — is how passive suicidal thinking begins: a sign that a person urgently needs support, not more silence.