Thinking about the meaning of this photo, a scene came to mind that’s a bit of a throwback. I hope you enjoy it!
What does this image make you think of?
Mirror, Mirror
A short story
The dim light suited the space. The coalescence of pale golden light spilling half-heartedly from the overhead fixture and the muted dappling of impending twilight oozing from underneath the perpetually drawn curtains was just enough to reveal the menacing burgundy sheen of the walls. The room was minimally furnished with its deeply stained mahogany bookshelves set into the walls themselves so as to not disturb the cube-like dimensions of the space. The effect of enclosure was both unnerving and embracing. One could see themselves hanging in a room like this. Tilting stiffly left and right, settling face first (as was only polite) into the mildly dusty plush of the armchair, it sturdied itself and gleamed expectantly.
The ungracefully balding man noted that the patient was ready. He pushed his sleek framed glasses thoughtfully up the bridge of his long, pointed nose like a starting mechanism, took a deep breath and began.
“Have you seen it again?” He prompted with the uninterested solemnity of ritual.
“I see it always.” Smoothly answered. He paused.
“Do you see it now?”
“Even now.”
The man made a mark in his notebook and nodded, reassuring himself that the response was the expected one. He waited.
The words were coming now, sharp and jagged, each one tinkling out in that high, pained voice. “The same core-shaking image, always there. Like nails relentlessly scraping across the chalkboard of my soul.” Reflecting inwardly, the sentiment took a moment to reverberate. “I’ve been decimated. Pieces are everywhere. Crumpled and shattered. Some parts just appear to be… missing. Everything around me is the same but nearly everything that this structure was holding together is destroyed. I’ve lost the ability to see, except in fragments.”
“A unsettling image for certain. How does it make you feel?”
Hesitation followed by certainty, “At peace.”
The man’s slow and steady nod stopped suddenly, touching the end of his pen to his lips before scratching down a note. A seeming juxtaposition. Not as predicted. “Expand on that.”
“It would be a relief, at this point, if she would get on with it. The threat was planted there to exploit the inevitable fear and ensure my compliance.It has up to this point.”
“…you no longer possess that fear?” he prodded delicately.
“There comes a point where principle overcomes fear. Where truth overcomes self-preservation. I cannot continue this lie. Each day, the same question. Each day, I must lie, out of fear. Even my attempts to distract her have only made things worse…” a violent shudder vibrated even the chair’s implacable frame.
Poorly disguising his eagerness beneath a casual shift, the man leaned forward in anticipation. “What is the truth that is worth your own existence?”
This proverbial baseball had the words exploding from him like so much shattered windowpane before the question had barely settled in the air. “She doesn’t see! She never sees what is in front of her, only what she wants. Any one thing can never be itself, not to her. There is always a rottenness, an unworthy judgment behind it. There is always an ulterior motive in her eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul and I’ve spent enough time staring into them to see what she can’t. The world isn’t like that in truth. Each thing only wants to be itself. It is she that is rotten and unworthy. She that projects poisons into everything she sees. And she has the gall to call herself fair! Can you believe that?!”
The question clearly rhetorical, the man simply kept taking notes. The monologue flowed like sand through a fist.
“I’m the only one who sees the truth. I’m the one that reflects reality. I see things how they really are and the unabashed irony that I am forced to speak such indomitable lies on the subject of fairness is not something I can live with anymore.” The pulsing energy that danced across its face faded and went dark.
Silence quivered tensely in the air, waiting for it to be broken. Finally,
“You know what this choice means?”
“I do, and accept it gladly.”
The man pressed his lips into a thin line and resignedly set the ever-vigilant pen and notepad dolefully on the adjacent table. “Then I will have the huntsman escort you to the woods.”