Tales of a Mirror

Tales of a Mirror

Okay, I lied a lil bit. Although I am a mirror, but most of the story is of days when I was just an ordinary glass. Where should I start from? Lets start from the very beginning.

Once upon a time long ago before time came into being there was... wait. That would take forever so better start from more recent past. I know what you are thinking right now, that I suffer from delusions of grandeur to start off my story in such a grand style as if it was the single most event in the history of time itself. I know it sounds like I was gonna tell story of origin of universe. Well, I'd let you be the judge of that by the time you end the story. So, lets begin from beginning... errr.. not of universe, but mine.

My first memory as a young boy is of being whipped up by sandstorms, high up into air and taken great distances in the vastness of ancient Egyptian desert. I used to love taking bath in the eyes of travellers who made the mistake of shutting their eyes just a wee bit late trying to see through the sandstorm. Some may call it a brave thing to do, but I know it is sheer stupidity. And desert doesn’t like that, he takes it as a personal disrespect for his powers. Anyhow, am digressing here. So, I had been whipped about in desert for far too long when one day a glass-maker scooped up all of me, along with many of my other friends. He took us to his foundry and within a day I was forged into a strong sturdy sheet of glass.

By then I had grown up into a sturdy teenager and times of pharaohs and kingdoms had come to pass. Now it was time of great cities and miracles of modern science. I was put up in a high end shop that sold clothes and accessories for those looking for excuses to spend money. And it is in this shop that the story I want to tell you truly began.

I was just a glass window, big one, but still a glass window. I was all that kept curious onlookers and passer-bys from touching the elegantly or grotesquely dressed mannequins. Many times a few would stand and stare inside the store. It would make me feel so good. I would really feel as if they were staring at me, fascinated by me. I knew they weren't interested in me, only in what I kept away from them, yet, those were the only times I would "feel". A rare few, ensnared by the display would dreamily touch me, as if in a trance. And the touch would send me into a trance too. Suddenly a whole new world would be opened to me. The sensation of touch. I would feel the warmth of steamy tongue that had licked curry off the fingers. I would smell the fresh nail polish on nails which had just come out of a manicure. I would feel the pulse of the heart doing a 120 at the sight of shimmering black dress and the pearl necklace that the mannequin wore. I could see the starry dreams in pearly eyes. And I could feel the longing beat in the hearts, and for that fleeting moment, felt its echo in mine.

An ephemeral fleeting moment, but it made my entire life seem like a smaller moment.

And there was another set of dreamers too. Just passing by, they would casually catch a faint glimpse of themselves in me. They would suddenly stop, as they saw a dream of theirs come alive in me. A woman with two kids would stand and stare longingly at her reflection, the pearl necklace on the mannequin fitting her reflection perfectly. A melancholic hand traced the pearl necklace on an empty neck, but not in the reflection. Only she and I saw her, wearing that necklace. In that moment we could see her the way she once used to be, young and beautiful. And in that moment I could see into her heart, a longing to be young and beautiful again so that her husband would spend more time with her. A fear, a sure fear that he was seeing someone else. A tear rising from deep within her chest, preparing to dive from the precipice of her eyes, only to be denied by the vehement cries of the younger one who had just spotted the latest Pokemon on display in a toy store.

There were many other clones of that woman, different nameless faces, different characters but at the core, same stories. A cool dude with a hot girl hanging by his arm wondering if she knows he is two timing her and scared she might be sleeping with his brother. A high shot executive wondering if he will be able to afford the expensive suits if his fraud is discovered. Shiny happy people with shiny happy faces. Never liked them. Since they saw themselves in me, in those moments I saw myself as them.

But all were not that bad. I have to tell you about the little flower girl, I called her rag princess. She used to sell flowers on the shopping street. Every night, when all lights in store would be out, she would sit by the streetlight. With lights in the shop all put out, I would be more of a mirror than glass. She would see her clear reflection, I would see me as her, more clearly than anyone else at any other time. And somehow feel it had nothing to do with the science of light.

It was in those moments I would be this beautiful rainbow princess. Her patchwork tattered skirt would become shimmering robe of seven colored light. Her matted dirty hair would become a crown of golden honeydew. Her starved watery eyes would turn into the most beautiful diamonds you'd ever see, so beautiful that they made the ones on the mannequin look like dull lifeless stones. And she loved to see herself as the rainbow princess. She would smile and laugh at what she saw, and would then go to sleep, an empty stomach filled with joy.

But no matter how loved I seeing the rainbow princess, my solitary source of joy in a rented existence, I yearned to see me. Yearned for someone who would neither see through me, nor see themselves in me. A hopeless dream as fragile as me. All other glass windows laughed and mocked me.

"A glass window who wants to see himself. What next, a block of cheese who wants to taste himself?"

"What is there to see? You are nothing, like us."

"Its what lies beyond you that makes you, you. And the reflection in you is what you are." said a mirror on the antique shop. When she spoke, all nodded their heads silently. Apparently she had come from Greece. Her were the words that I agreed with most, yet, there was a restlessness that I knew would shatter me one day. And it did.

I was still asleep when it hit me, a brick. My upper half had a huge hole in the middle. The spider-web cracks were spreading further. Couldn't see much, but all I saw was hordes of man brandishing swords, rioting. One of them picked the screaming shrieking rag princess, poured kerosene on her and set her on fire.

I shattered into a thousand pieces.

*******

Sorry for the long pause, memory of my rainbow girl, my most beautiful dream, always gets me melancholic. Relax, its not the end, it would be too dark an ending to my story. Besides, I have yet to justify the title and the grand beginning I almost gave.

I woke up, don't know how many days later, in a storehouse [didn't know it then, would find that out much later]. I felt renewed and different. Looks like all the glass on the shopping street had been disposed off in the best way a glass would want to be, taken to a glass factory. And I had been re-forged into a mirror. I looked around.

Could see nothing anywhere, yet my heart beat the way it had never before. A certain anticipation the like of which I had never felt throbbed every cell of my existence. I looked around again, could see nothing. Nothing not as in dark, no, it was well lit. Yet could see nothing. Suddenly I heard a sound and a nut fell right in front of me. And I saw the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

Million and million of nuts that went forever, each a perfect replica of the first one, extending into infinity, each moving in perfect unison. And then came a squirrel and it picked up the nut. It stared at me and blinked. The images of squirrel and her back alternately extended into the infinity in front of me. And I could feel a similar one extend into me. Was the it my eternity being reflected, or I a reflection of infinity?

The squirrel left, not before its tail brushed me and tipped me slightly forward. I expected to fall but suddenly hit something. Clanking of glasses, humans would call it. But to me it was the distinct groan of a female mirror. And then I realised the truth.

The mirror in antique shop had once mentioned it to me. I was once again staring at nothingness. But it wasn't so. The nothingness was me, and her. Yeah, another mirror was standing right parallel to me. We both were nothing, yet everything. We both extending till eternity into each other. Each reflection a universe, universes extending from infinity to infinity. No one could tell where it started from and where it ended, only where lay its exact middle. The point where our foreheads touched.

The point where her and my eternity took a breather, before they started on another journey to forever into each other.

Two eternities, intertwined, from forever, to forever.