Adapt.

The sky churned into a hail-storm, obscuring the elegant forestry view from Mathew’s workplace. News channels on multiplex televisions roared about this blizzard and instructed the city not to get out of their roofs.

Mathew’s workplace was cheese with bewildered mice criss-cross running, clamourously. A wiry haired man constantly complained about his ancient car being cramped by the snow. In the cling of this storm, normally calm people unleashed their madness as if it was the end of the world. Some complained about them being stranded from their family, few put bets on the durability of this storm, a couple of them were, humorous to say, playing cards. Secluded from this melodrama was a tall, tanned and tumultuous guy Mathew.

With a distasteful smile, he distanced himself from the raucous till he found solitude. He walked through the clutches of the lanky building, into the dense corners. He knew he wanted to break the rules. 

His eye caught a rainbow colored door that read “AWAY”. Imbibing the drunkenness of the weather, he comfortably opened the door to see a pretty, wavy hair doll sitting on a chair. He smiled and shut the door gently. 

He walked frontwards unflinchingly, knowing the fact that there was no one on this floor. 

He knew he had kept his office bag in his cabin and made a mental note of not forgetting to take it back home. Thefts were greatly possible in his dear workplace, because Mathew didn’t think of anyone here any better than a thief. 

He came across a door that was almost translucent, unlike any other he’d seen here. Ironic to its suspicious presence, the room’s door read “Go Inn!”

To be sheltered better, mentally and physically, he strode inside that quirky place.

As he stepped in, showers of fog trickled beneath his buttoned up shirt, bouncing upon his disheveled hair and swirling around the periphery of his eyes. It was a calming presence to him, cancelling out the frothing lava in his mind.

He peddled ahead with some trace of clarity, as if reaching out to the white darkness beneath the blankets of mystery.

Lithely, along the sway of his movement, the fog subsided partly and made way for him. Front of him was another door, which lead to a room with a balcony. 

He pried to push open the transparent door out of its rigid existence. As he slightly opened the door, velvety air squeezed through it and gently brushed his cheeks.

It gave him shivers. Not because it was chilly but because he could relate this with his daughter. For the second time. She had an innocent habit of playing with his cheeks and gently circling her palm around them. Oh, how he loved it!

On his way to the unknown realm, something familiar, redirected his path.

A pair of Socks. Christmas socks. They were engraved on the glass frame by forces of wind. They were tiny. Just like his daughter’s were.

He kept his hand on them, trying to peel them off the glass and protect it by his warmth, step by step. For they were the last materialistic evidence of her existence. His heart gushed with glorious passion. In the conquest of enclosing them in his fist, their hues subdued and steadily obliterated. His heart was just commencing to lub-dub with aspirations of hope, but now it froze.

He couldn’t take it anymore. Reminiscing his daughter, feeling the connect with her, getting hopes for her return and then suddenly blackout. It ripped him apart.

He tried shutting his feelings back again, like he’d done since years, and made his way to the door.

But, uh-huh, escape was not this easy. With all the fog cleared up now, the room’s real demeanor was veiled. It was spacious, packed with air and had two long mirrors rallied up parallel to each other.

As he saw his reflection through his clouded eyes, he stayed glued to the ground. His face looked like a red, thin tomato: drenched and in pain.

He went closer to his virtual self and said furiously, “You are an idiot. You are blind. You are the one to blame.”

The air was quiet.

“This room,”Mathew pointed vividly, “Ah, it got me, it just got me right on point. Now it’s just nipping the life out of me. But you, How could you meltdown by the influence of a room?!”

His virtual self did not defend itself.

“A room. Hahaha. A damn room. How could it make you so vulnerable?!”

With a flick of lightning, Mathew started back to the mirror in an puzzled manner.

“Was that me?” He asked the mirror cautiously. “Yeah, I’m talking about me, Mathew Blake.”

“I can’t, I can’t believe that. I just expelled my anger so fiercely. I have never been able to do this. And oh yes, forgive me for my rudeness, will you?”

He looked at the room again, pleasantly, and adored the quality that it brought out of him.

With a crooked smile and half broken heart, he decided to leave the room.

But then something happened! His brain starting working. And he realised that this mirror, unlike any other, was not laterally inverted.

Dubiously, he approached the mirror and flung his hand to touch it. But boy did he know that it was an illusion, not a mirror. He scratched his head frantically and rewind out of the room. He gave the door a last look, when he suddenly noticed that the door read “Don’t Go Inn!”. Tricks of the season. Or maybe tricks of the subconscious mind.

Back on his way to the cabinet, he thought about how insensitive his virtual self tried to act. How suppressed had one incident caused him to be. His virtual self, who was just a reflection of him. 

He randomly remembered a comical episode that occurred today. 

The wiry haired man had said dramatically in morning, “My wife was married.” He paused as everyone looked at him in sympathy. “To me.” He continued.

“Was?” Somebody asked. “Oh yes. Now she is married to.” All ears had perked up. “My money.” Everyone turned back to their work, uninterested.

Mathew laughed loudly enjoying the humor of the scene now. He came back to square one: his cabinet. The cheese with mice on it. Except, the mice seemed to have overeaten, judging from the noiseless conversations happening. Yes, the noisier ones had dozed off to sleep.

The storm had vanished. Mathew picked up his office bag and knocked on the wiry man’s slouched bag, “Come on with me, I’ll drop you.” The man was dumb-folded.

Mathew wondered, analysing the man’s expressions, whether a storm had actually occurred or that too was an illusion.