As My Mirror Left Me

My mirror deserted me a few days back. It decided to bite back its sharp tongue, it went into self denial. The tragedy of our life is perhaps acceptance. We accept destiny, we become fatalists since we believe we do not have it within us to challenge fate. For a long time, I had not contacted the mirror because I thought it will tell me what I feared to hear. Then one day, I just removed the curtains and there it was dusty and faded. And when I asked it to tell me the truth, it just said, “Fall into the line. Conform” It had realized that the gangrene had spread and it did not want to suggest amputation.

When they have broken you, you need a severance but any severance is painful and human beings are weak by nature. So we run away from the pain that this detachment can cause us. The Mirror is therefore important to show how disfigured you look as you slowly become oblivious to the stench. Imagine a layer of blotched skin on the Statue of David. Only a mirror can show it to you.

When you have a spine, it’s easier to break you. Sometimes, the flexibility is lost to bend and a lot of people find breaking backbones a lot more fun. Worms are lucky in this way. You can crawl and cringe and stay alive.

First you rebel, then you drink your frustration, then you accept and then you cross over, finally ready and adept at pulling others down to your baseness.

As usual I end with a question. The question dear reader is whether breathing means staying alive. And before you get into the rhetoric of ideas gleaned from self help books, let me walk out for some fresh air.