Mirrored

Life is made up of 3 things: choice, chance, and change. The most fragile of these is choice, or decision, as it is the only one we have in our own hands. Decisions can be small, but sometimes, the so big that its outcome can last for decades, and once made, it’s hard to turn back. Everyone is free to make decisions, but not free to choose the consequence. That consequence can change life, or ruin it.

    “Just smell that autumn air”, Aelia smiled as she walked through her garden, “I am sure winter’s coming a little early this year”. Aelia lived with her family in a cottage. She had four sisters, Isabella and Olivia the eldest, and Ava and Mia the youngest. Aelia was the third youngest of them all. They had a little farm, a cow and a grey pony. The girls didn’t know why they had ended up in a small remote mountainside, but had heard that they once lived in a beautiful village and come here to escape wars which were happening in that part of the country. Aelia was a young and beautiful girl with long black hair and shiny black eyes. She wondered why they didn’t live like normal people, in a town with plenty of farms like them, and people who would smile and talk with them.

    One night, she was staring at her tiny fireplace while her mother was preparing supper, she felt being somewhere she could live like other girls she had heard, wearing fancy dresses, gazing at a thing they call “phone”, and listening to music all day. A feeling inside urged her to ask her mother about it. “Mother, why can’t we go to live in a town”, she asked. Suddenly, her mother stopped cold. Her face turned pale and she walked straight into her room. Aelia stood there, conjecturing what had happened a few minutes ago. Her mother was not seen after that.

            Even in bed, Aelia kept on thinking what had happened that evening. She started to feel very lonely, almost as much as a stranger left somewhere he couldn’t get out of. She reached her tiny mirror and looked into it. And all of a sudden, she started crying. But, as she was weeping, she noticed that her reflection stopped sobbing. And then, out of the nowhere, a little voice came, “hello!” Aelia turned around but found no one. But then, her eyes stopped at the mirror, her reflection was talking to her! Her heart sank and she was about to scream but she again paused and asked in a tiny voice, “Who are you?”. “It doesn’t matter who I am”, said the reflection. “What do you mean”, Aelia questioned. “I am you but your opposite”, Said the girl in the mirror. Aelia stared at her with a dazzled look on her face. ”I don’t get it”, Aelia pronounced. “I can give you what you want, a life opposite to this one, but if you take the consequence”. “I would love to, what’s the worst that can happen”, she smiled. “The past and future is complicated, and so is the connection between time and mirror. Any single fault, and its destroyed”. “I don’t think there is any chance of that happening”, Aelia verbalized. She was too eager to live somewhere opposite, she didn’t even think what could happen.

         The girl in the mirror reached out her hand. Aelia touched the mirror as if she was trying to hold it, and the other second she was standing in a beautiful room filled with lots of different kinds of dresses. She took a brief look at herself. She was taller than usual. She was not wearing her old frock like usual. Instead she was wearing a stunning scarlet dress with lovely red heels she had never seen before. “What has happened”, Aelia mumbled. “Congrats, you are the mayor!”, the girl in the mirror exclaimed. “How, I am only nine years and now I am the mayor!” Aelia cried. “Look at yourself”, the girl in the mirror urged. She took a glance in a mirror nearby. She had turned into an adult! “I am a grown-up”, she gasped. “Madam, you are getting late”, a man called from outside. “Late, for what?” she asked. “Your announcement, madam. Press is waiting”, the man answered. Aelia walked through the winding corridors into a huge hall. She stood on a gleaming stage but she didn’t know what to say. “Ummm”, she hesitated, “free food this week!” Suddenly, the hall got filled with wild applause. There she left the platform and went straight to her room, followed by crowds of cheering people and flashing lights. She locked her room and fell on her bed, tired and full of the joys of spring. She opened her mirror and pronounced, “That was amazing, and I want to live like this forever!” “You will see”, whispered the girl in the mirror. Aelia closed the mirror and soon fell asleep.

       The next day, she woke up at the crack of dawn and started to go through all the clothes to pick the best dress for her to wear. And there were thousands of them too! She first tried a long one, then a short one, then a shirt. She finally settled on a long black dress and shiny black shoes. She had a delicious breakfast which she had never eaten before. Aelia was just going outside when someone told, “Everything is ready, madam”. “What ready?” Aelia asked. “You gave us the instruction to occupy the northern countryside, and give the people there place in shelter homes”, the man answered. Aelia excused and then ran into the room, opened the mirror and shouted, “What is all this”. “The consequence”, the girl smirked. Aelia cried, “My family”. “That’s your past, why do you care so much about it?” the girl in the mirror interrupted. “I can’t let go of my past, it is where I belong, it tells who I am”, Aelia yelled. The girl in the mirror beamed, and the other moment she was sitting on her tiny bed. “So you wanna be your opposite?” the girl in the mirror sneered. Aelia smiled, “No, turns out, I am already”. “If your opposite is here, I don’t think there is any point of me staying here”, the girl beamed and with that she disappeared. Aelia turned around and got out like the light. She still kept the mirror in her hand, hoping that the girl in the mirror would come back.

“Family is like a magical mirror. Looking at them we see our past future and present”.