Me and my mirror

Whatever that can go wrong went wrong for Ram on that fateful day. In the morning, he was fired from his job for showing up five minutes late. In the afternoon, his wallet, with all his money, and his phone was stolen. In the evening, his girlfriend dumped him, and in the process, went out without paying for the snacks, which he had to repay by giving the watch and asking the owner of the restaurant to have his watch until he repays the ill, to which the owner happily accepted. It was almost 7 PM in the evening when he came home. After staring at the mirror blankly for an hour, he broke down and cried like a baby for some half an hour or so. Then, he punched the mirror in his frustration, which was understandable. But what was shocking is that instead of the usual outcome, which is breaking the mirror, and his hand, he heard a loud shrill cry of pain from within the mirror. He looked the mirror, but no difference was there, except for the shocking fact that his reflection had a bloodied nose, and when he leaned forward in an attempt to touch the mirror, he got punched in the face, and there he was, with the same injury in the same spot. All of a sudden, something pulled his leg and was pulled into his mirror, and the last thing he saw was a bunch of broken glass, and a pattern of straight lines and some curves before he fell on his head inside a dark place.

 When his eyes got adjusted to the light, he was shocked to see that there were only mirrors. “What the…” thought Ram, as he proceeded to walk straight, and within the first two steps, he hit himself on a mirror. He was clearly lost. Then he tried walking a couple more steps before stubbing his leg in a mirror. Then, he stood up and looked around for a minute. He saw mirrors below him, above him and everywhere on his sides, but with some focus, he could see some path. “This is a humongous labyrinth.” he thought within himself, as he decided to walk through it, because one way or another, he will reach the end, and there can only be so many paths which which lead to the wrong way. “One step at a time.” thought Ram, as he kept on touching a mirror for guidance, and he was very careful not to run, as mirrors are glasses, and he doesn’t want to fall any more.

Something from within knocked him down. He got up to see that something from his mirror is slowly stalking him, and attacking him. But nobody else was there, and he was alone inside the maze. He thought of an idea, and decided to run along the mirrors, while keeping touch of the mirrors on his side. “That’s easy. One. Two. One.” said Ram to himself, as he slowly started to walk, and gaining some momentum and confidence, he began to run with the mirrors. Ram was jogging, and within seconds, he was running at an amazingly high speed that no one could stop him from reaching his goal. He turns left, then a right, ad then took the third left and the fourth right, and then ran like a maniac. For him, the maze neither interests him, nor perplexes him. For him, it is just another pain in his neck in the horrible day. He was running in a blinding speed when he felt something just as fast as him, if not faster, hit him after stalking for a while. Ram got hit pretty badly in his shoulder, but here’s the surprising thing: He wasn’t attacked from behind. He was confronted by something which looks eerily similar for a fraction of a second, and then he got kicked on the shoulder. Undeterred, he walked on and was almost seeing the endpoint, as it was the only way illuminated, and it was the one door that he should cross.

 But suddenly, he felt his legs swinging and the finger positions going crazy, and realized that this portion of the maze involved the mirrors moving like crazy. He just stood there, carefully observing the patterns in which they moved. All of a sudden, he was hit by a moving mirror from behind, and he, along with it, were moving at an incredible pace. He was too scared to move away from it. After some seconds, he saw a mirror moving him, and jumped out at the last second to avoid it. Actually, not every part. His ankle was caught behind the colliding mirrors, and was broken. He gave a shriek of pain, before seeing his leg having pieces of mirror shards pointing out of his ankle. He saw his leg, and quickly decided to pluck it out. He was crying in pain as he was plucking it out, and he quickly covered his leg by tearing a piece of his pant using one of the glass shards, and tied tightly to his leg, preventing more blood loss.

He decided to make a run for it, and blindly ran along the mirrors, evading collisions by inches, while simultaneously limping with one good leg, and one heavily injured leg. He did it for a while, while also using a part of his shirt covered over his knuckles to punch out the light mirrors on his way out, and just as he was about to step out of the maze, he moved in haste without paying heed to the surroundings, and just as his limping leg was almost crossed the door, his unknown antagonist pulled him in, and the mirrors pushed him in again. Ram yelled, “For the love of…” before he ended back where he almost cut his ankle off. He knew that if he has to go through the maze, at first, he would have to defeat his enemy, and run like possessed. He yelled, “Where are you? Show yourself? Tell me your secret? Coward!” when he noticed something. It was similar, but not the same person. He stopped one such attack by simply kicking his reflection in the knee, and proceeded to shadow-fight different people inside the mirrors. As he proceeded to fight, it became apparent that his hit has only resulted to more injuries in his body at the same spot. So, he relaxed his mind and looked around. He ran again, but not to escape the maze, but to explore the maze itself. He ran around for some time, and for the first time, he actually stood and saw himself. He is still the same Ram, but in his teens, having a time of his life, instead of the depressed guy that he is right now.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” was his line of thought, as he looked at the mirrors. He saw himself, but in each mirror, it was a different person. His first haircut. His home run that won the local school team the Inter- School Championship. His proposal to his girlfriend. After seeing a few like that, he laughed at his pathetic attempt at copying an answer from the smartest kid in the class, his first in weeks, without any inhibitions, and he looked up. The mirrors stopped and formed a formation of his face. In the corner of his eye, he saw the guy who hit him first see up there with the same astonishment as he did. He slowly brought his fingers to the person in the reflection. He was afraid of Ram. Ram noticed that his reflection looked older than him, and has a completely lifeless face, with nothing really outstanding, except an extremely pitiful existence felt, slogging the days, just existing, and not living. Ram sympathised with his reflection, and made a vow to himself that he will live in the future, and not just push the days going forward.

Out of the blue, he heard his girlfriend’s voice echoing inside the maze, saying “Get up! I am here, get up!”. All of a sudden, he felt his reflections behave in a more antagonizing manner than the calm interval. He closed his eyes, said himself to follow his guts and started to run like a maniac, only to be pushed down multiple times. Then, he remembered the image in his mirror before he was sucked into this highly introspective dimension. He started to remember the shape, and guessed his way almost to the exit point when he stopped, and turned back. “I like this place.” said Ram to himself and even managed to shed a tear, but ultimately realized that however his past and his future might seem, it is important to live in the present, and not just exist. “Thank you, Ram.” was his words which he whispered, when he jumped out of the door into an endless void, and within seconds he opened his eye.

“Thank god you are alright.” said his girlfriend with a sigh of relief from her. She started to cry and said “I am so sorry for dumping you. I didn’t know you would go to these lengths.”. “When did we break up, exactly?” ask Ram in a puzzled tone. “Today evening. It is hardly four hours and look at you.” was a reply that he did not anticipate. He tried to get up, but he could not move the parts that were damaged in the skirmish with ease. As he slowly got up, the girl asked, “Do you remember what happened after you proposed to me and I rejected initially?” in the hope that he doesn’t have brought some kind of amnesia into himself. “What happened?” asked Ram with the same inquisitiveness as a child going to school for the first time. “I only remember breaking a lot of mirrors.” he said while looking at the mirror, which is broken at the moment. “That’s it. Now I found why was the dimension mysterious. I know its glorious secret. My mother used to tell me, “Life is a mirror. It will always reflect what you do.”. But I know one thing more. Our memories are like a mirror. They are very fragile, and will crumble any moment without a warning. It is imperative that we enjoy that while it is still present, and we should live, and not just exist.” Ram concluded as he held his lady’s hand, and smiled at the beautiful half-crescent moon glowing above.