Hall of Mirrors
I entered the Hall of Mirrors without recollection or realization. I
was there and I don't know how I got there. My guide was waiting. His black eyes
lacked life and the whites shone bright and never blinked. Smooth hair
went from temple to the nape of his neck. His skin was ivory and his
teeth even more brilliantly white, too white for reality. I knew he was
my guide by the, “hello, I'm your Guide,” sticker on his breast. His
name was Bob.
“Ready to start?” A pasted smile fell onto his lips. I followed his lead and he took me to the main Hall of Mirrors. I guess I expected something other than what I saw. There was the gleaming mahogany of what could have been a antiquated English lord's manor. Richly carved frames of oak, maple, metal, steel and gold – each a work of art in itself. Each stretched twenty feet up the walls of the massive gallery. Long tallow candles stuck three to a holder on each side of the mirrors and reflected tongues of light over and over in the Hall of Mirrors.
“Stand before each mirror and see yourself as you are... see what you really are...” Bob licked his lips, his eyes on the mirror before us as his pale hands placed me before the glass with an imposing oak frame. After a moment, the glass shimmered and showed a larger reflection of me. I was wearing a black suit and looked very severe. She looked at me with such hatred, I didn't think it was me. It hardly looked like me, but I knew in my stomach that it was me. My stomach began to turn as she opened her mouth. The plaque on the bottom of the mirror cleared and the word “Cruel” appeared.
Words unpremeditated and unbidden poured from my mouth. Not the mirror, she mouthed the words and I spoke them. It was like vomiting, an unnatural reflex of bile unbidden.
“Look, slut. I don't have time for your fat ass. I don't give two slugs from John Wilkes Booth's gun what you do, but keep your crap away from me. I'm not Dr. Phil. I'm not going to waste my time being your mommy when you need to grow a pair and grow up. Do I look like I care if your life sucks? Try being me when everyone wants my help, my time, my money, my genius? I'm stuck in a frickin' world of imbeciles!”
I froze where I was, hearing my voice so distorted and being so spoken to by my own mouth. I didn't move. I felt like I'd been slapped first thing out of bed in the morning.
“Leave!” The face screamed at me as I screamed. “Leave, b***h!!”
Bob moved me on to the next mirror, a red maple frame. I was shell shocked. My stomach was beginning official cramps as knots twisted painfully. The plaque on this second mirror cleared and read, “Manipulating”.
“What? Oh. I don't need you. You're not of any use – right now," my mouth spoke. The image wore a black dress and stilettos. My head began to pound as words again forced themselves out of my mouth.
“You see, I use capable people with actual knowledge and power. I don't think anyone needs you, but leave your cell number and if I think of anything, I'll call you. Do you do dry clean runs? That would be up your alley. No. That would be asking too much, probably. Go on deary, don't call me, I'll call you. Go and find your happily...” she chuckled “...ever after.” She shooed me away with a disdainful hand wave.
My stomach hurt so, I thought I'd fall over. My head was also beginning to throb painfully. I met the next silver mirror with fear and trepidation. I was ready to go home. The plaque read, “Seductress”.
Myself appeared in less clothing than I had ever imagined. I gave myself flirtatious gestures and beckoning looks. When I spoke, I began to cry as I spoke in a sultry voice, low and cat-like.
“Well... hi. So you wanna be bad... I can teach you, when no ones looking. Don't want to??!??! Whatever. It's all the rage and I can teach it. Tempt. Allure. Entice. You'll appear so naive and stupid, but really we plan every touch and every look... every purr. Watch this move.”
I wanted to look away, but couldn't. Something so simple and common place was made vile by her looks of intention.
“See. Come and learn. You're not pretty, but that's what make up is for and I can do wonders with plastic and cover up.” Bob made a moan from behind me.
“I like you that way,” his disturbing eyes never left my nearly nude body in the mirror. I turned from him and actually vomited at the foot of the mirror. Bob chuckled like a rattling chain.
“Most people do that there,” he said. He waited while I wiped bile from my lips and tears from my face. I couldn't take much more of this torment. Hall of Mirrors indeed.
“Can I go home now?”
Bob smiled, a plastic doll move on his inhuman face. “Only way out is the exit at the end. This way.” He led me to a black framed mirror with a plaque that said “Depressed”. Myself, in old home clothes and no pretense of any kind was curled up in a corner on the floor. When it saw the real me, I/it crawled out on all fours, tears dribbling and words mumbled by sobs poured out of me.
“No one ever calls me. I never have text messages. No one likes me. No one returns my calls. No one wants to see me. I'm plain. I'm fat. I'm hideous. If I wasn't ugly and sour I wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't be hated and avoided. I wouldn't hate living. Never was anyone as unloved as me!” The image crept forward as I fell on my knees.
“All I want is love and acceptance like every other person on earth, but I'm ugly and people only use me. I hate being alone and despised...”
Every feeling of loneliness and failure crept up in my throat and I sobbed uncontrollably before the mirror Depressed. Here I realized that every word that had fallen from my lips in the Hall of Mirrors was true. My right arm began to ache, an intense soreness between my elbow and wrist. It grew worse as my stomach and head continued the symphony of pain in me. I didn’t think I'd live through it.
“Come. There's more!” Bob ushered me up and on. I thought I'd collapse any moment. I don't know what carried me. I stopped before a ostentatious gilt mirror and saw myself in a red dress, all smiles and wild gestures. My face exploded with the laugh from my mouth.
“That's SO funny! O my gosh! Did you hear about it? She really did it,” I laughed so hard and loud, as if to break the mirror before me. “O my gosh! I died. I couldn't help it. So funny right! And when Grandpa told the story of splitting his pants in the Christmas pageant...” explosive laughter again. “Oh my gosh. Tears streaming, I tell you. SO funny.”
It was like Fozzy Bear up and became a trans-species and a transgender comedian. Never had I felt so humiliated or embarrassed. My face burned with shame. My soul hurt. I couldn't justify myself anymore for my every part of my personality had been ridiculed. My own lips had portrayed my mockery. My faults, my soul, my shame, my self, what was left to destroy?
Bob moved me before a steel mirror and backed away, further than he had before. I trembled. I hurt. I ached so much. I looked at the mirror plaque labeled “Whiny”.
I saw myself in an empty church in the last pew.
“Why is my life like this? Don't you know I have dreams that you're stopping? Don't you get that I'm tired of waiting?! Don't you know how hard I work? That I talk to people about you? That I tithe all the time! That I'm honest and polite whether I want to or not!?!?! Would you please answer me!!! Don't you care for me at all??”
The church and the hall rang with silence, but for my choked sobbing.
“Fine. I can do it on my own until you feel like opening up and talking, sir.”
I rushed away from the mirror and fell on the floor in a puddle of heart break and anguish. My body hurt in every way possible.
Bob stood over me.
“Well, this is the end of our special time together. There are many other halls here we could visit, but I think we're done for today. You'll have to come back again and see more mirrors! I do hope you enjoyed your visit to this Hall of Mirrors and will tell all your friends about us. We accept visits at any time. The exit is this way.”
I was forced to stand alone and exit the Hall of Mirrors. Hall of Hell, I thought.
My body began to show bruises all over my arms. I felt them on my legs and stomach. Bruises, dark purple the size of a quarter all over me. They hurt and Bob noticed them.
“Those are normal. The darts of a woman's tongue do leave a mark now don't they... sad yet, you know the old proverb ... 'from the heart, the mouth speaketh'. Sad how many people have such black hearts. Truly disheartening for anyone who believes in mankind being redeemable. If one good person is so evil and untrue to the teachings of morality, how can anyone stand a chance?”
Bob held a very large door open and a cold light made me blink madly against the tears, less the world see me broken and sorry. I didn't want to walk outside. I didn't want people to see me. They'd see my cruel self or stupid self. I wanted to cry forever. I wanted to hide in a ball of shame, guilt and misery. I hated myself with all of my weak remaining will power. Bob indicated I'd over stayed my welcome.
“Have a nice day. Go. Go now. Quickly! Get out of here!!!” His voice rose from its monotone to almost a shrill terrified peak.
“Bob, leave yourself.” Someone behind me said, a low man's voice.
“I can't, my work isn't done.”
“I said, you are done. Be gone.” Bob disappeared on the spot with a snap, which startled me enough to turn around. The speaker stood in the doorway leading to a small room off the main Hall of Mirrors. He smiled at me and I stopped crying.
“Come. Let me show you something.”
“No! Please. Don't ask it of me. I can't bear anymore!” He held out his hand.
“Come. It won't hurt as much. Not in the least.” I don't know why, but I followed him into a dark study. Thick and comfortable chairs sat facing each other. A desk with the largest book ever laid across it. Maps, books and file cabinets lined walls except for one. The very warm, welcoming brown room had one wall with seven mirrors the size of tea trays. I shied from them, afraid.
“Ah, my mirrors are not like those that belong to Bob's employer's. You may look if you like.”
“Will it hurt?”
“I don't know. Some do. Some don't. That depends on you and what you look like.”
Suddenly tears filled my eyes.
“So it's true...” my lips trembled and I felt all my shame renewed. “What I see in the mirror is what's inside of me...” a sob escaped.
“I repeat, my dear girl, my mirrors are nothing like Bob's employer's mirrors you looked in today. My mirrors show things... differently than how you've already seen them today. That's how I work.”
The man was at ease, merely waiting to see if I would look or giving me a sanctuary from the street while I cried. I was amazed by his kindness.
“Very well,” I heaved a shuddering sigh. “I'll look.” He sat down in a high back leather chair, a tea cup in hand.
“If you want to. I like to start on the far left,” he said.
I looked into the first mirror. There was no title and I feared what may come through the gilt frame. I saw only myself as I presently was. Just me. Then it changed. I didn't encounter myself as I had in the Hall, but saw myself as a spectator would, as the man behind me might have observed. I saw myself over years of time. I saw myself at age three, praying with my parents, then at eleven when I prayed for myself on a swing by my house, and then closer to now, again, praying. Then, each glimpse connected with the next, each showing me with a child or children. My siblings, my cousins, my friends' children, campers, my niece and nephews, always with children. The man behind me spoke.
“'Let the children come unto me', 'whatever you did for the lease of these, you did for me'. Children are the ultimate in my book. There is nothing greater or worth more in this or the next world. You always accept and love the children. You always take them as they are. They seek you out and you rarely refuse them the love they ask for. They come to you as they would come to me. You receive them as I would, with joy and love.”
He returned to his tea and I moved to the next mirror, identical to the first. I saw myself singing and playing bassoon. I saw myself playing duets, singing in choir, playing in groups or accompanying, or just in the hallways for fun. I saw myself practicing for hours. I saw myself crying over notes and scales, passages and symphonies. I struggled and prevailed.
“You have more passion in a hobby than some people have in their entire life,” he said. “You care deeply for music. It touches you and changes you as few things in life can. Your passion is breathtaking and is, forgive the pun, music to my ears. Your struggles and hard work please me all the more. Your sound, especially when your soul is in it, is a sweet sound in my ear, like a shepherd boy with a harp – only a girl with a bassoon and a voice. Your passion spurs you on in many pursuits and its one of my delights.”
I wiped tears from my cheeks and moved to the third mirror. I saw myself laughing and people laughing with me. I saw friends and family laughing. I saw this without shame or blushing.
“Your laugh is loud and large for so is your love of humor and joy. The tears you shed now irritate you for sorrow is not in your nature. You see the fun in things, you make things fun and celebrate life. Sometimes it can be annoying, but so is a rose that grows in a corn field and smothers the shallow corn roots or as a careless mother cat that sits on her kitten and smothers it. The cat knows not that it suffocates the kitten nor does the rose realize it kills the corn. It is just doing as a rose does and as a cat does. You will learn to control the power of your humor and loud expression,” he chuckled into his tea. “As you grow, let it grow and use it for me. I love to laugh too.”
I moved to the fourth mirror. I saw a red blob of paint fluctuating in space. After a moment it began to gyroscope in patterns forming roses, hearts and blossoming outward as it danced and grew. I blinked and it was gone. My hands were extended and cupped to hold a drop of water. Water dripped into my hands, soon trickling, and then pouring and running in a stream out of my hands. I blinked and it was gone. I saw fire and books were feeding the fire. They didn't burn, but were shelved within the blaze and with each one, the flames rushed higher, wider and the heat became more intense. I blinked and it was gone.
“This is your last mirror today. What you saw is what is yet to come. The heart, the water, the fire is you. You will begin to see yourself change, my lady. Your love will grow, expand, and begin to overflow, more than you can hold, as you have never experienced. You will learn to love a lot people. You will learn love as you have never known it. It will be quite a journey. Your passion, your acceptance of children, your joy and humor will soon grow as a result of your love growing. It may hurt and it will be a process, but the result will be amazing.”
“What of the other mirrors?”
“These are for when you are older. Other journeys lie there. The last is one you see only when you are called home. The last earthly remembrance before one leaves for home. You will see them someday, dear. Now, it is time for you to leave. Only remember my joy in the things I have shown you. There are many things inside of you. Some ugly, but also some things I esteem greatly. You should be ashamed of the refuse in you and work to destroy it while strengthening the good. Know you were made for more, so glory can shine in you. The rest is just earthly wrappings and everyone is human.” He finished his cup of tea.
“The door is there. Feel free to visit anytime. The mirrors are not always on display, but you can always come talk to me. Nothing would make me happier than to have tea with you.”
I said good day and walked out into clear rain, but with a warmth within, planning on returning the next day for tea.
8/2011
“Ready to start?” A pasted smile fell onto his lips. I followed his lead and he took me to the main Hall of Mirrors. I guess I expected something other than what I saw. There was the gleaming mahogany of what could have been a antiquated English lord's manor. Richly carved frames of oak, maple, metal, steel and gold – each a work of art in itself. Each stretched twenty feet up the walls of the massive gallery. Long tallow candles stuck three to a holder on each side of the mirrors and reflected tongues of light over and over in the Hall of Mirrors.
“Stand before each mirror and see yourself as you are... see what you really are...” Bob licked his lips, his eyes on the mirror before us as his pale hands placed me before the glass with an imposing oak frame. After a moment, the glass shimmered and showed a larger reflection of me. I was wearing a black suit and looked very severe. She looked at me with such hatred, I didn't think it was me. It hardly looked like me, but I knew in my stomach that it was me. My stomach began to turn as she opened her mouth. The plaque on the bottom of the mirror cleared and the word “Cruel” appeared.
Words unpremeditated and unbidden poured from my mouth. Not the mirror, she mouthed the words and I spoke them. It was like vomiting, an unnatural reflex of bile unbidden.
“Look, slut. I don't have time for your fat ass. I don't give two slugs from John Wilkes Booth's gun what you do, but keep your crap away from me. I'm not Dr. Phil. I'm not going to waste my time being your mommy when you need to grow a pair and grow up. Do I look like I care if your life sucks? Try being me when everyone wants my help, my time, my money, my genius? I'm stuck in a frickin' world of imbeciles!”
I froze where I was, hearing my voice so distorted and being so spoken to by my own mouth. I didn't move. I felt like I'd been slapped first thing out of bed in the morning.
“Leave!” The face screamed at me as I screamed. “Leave, b***h!!”
Bob moved me on to the next mirror, a red maple frame. I was shell shocked. My stomach was beginning official cramps as knots twisted painfully. The plaque on this second mirror cleared and read, “Manipulating”.
“What? Oh. I don't need you. You're not of any use – right now," my mouth spoke. The image wore a black dress and stilettos. My head began to pound as words again forced themselves out of my mouth.
“You see, I use capable people with actual knowledge and power. I don't think anyone needs you, but leave your cell number and if I think of anything, I'll call you. Do you do dry clean runs? That would be up your alley. No. That would be asking too much, probably. Go on deary, don't call me, I'll call you. Go and find your happily...” she chuckled “...ever after.” She shooed me away with a disdainful hand wave.
My stomach hurt so, I thought I'd fall over. My head was also beginning to throb painfully. I met the next silver mirror with fear and trepidation. I was ready to go home. The plaque read, “Seductress”.
Myself appeared in less clothing than I had ever imagined. I gave myself flirtatious gestures and beckoning looks. When I spoke, I began to cry as I spoke in a sultry voice, low and cat-like.
“Well... hi. So you wanna be bad... I can teach you, when no ones looking. Don't want to??!??! Whatever. It's all the rage and I can teach it. Tempt. Allure. Entice. You'll appear so naive and stupid, but really we plan every touch and every look... every purr. Watch this move.”
I wanted to look away, but couldn't. Something so simple and common place was made vile by her looks of intention.
“See. Come and learn. You're not pretty, but that's what make up is for and I can do wonders with plastic and cover up.” Bob made a moan from behind me.
“I like you that way,” his disturbing eyes never left my nearly nude body in the mirror. I turned from him and actually vomited at the foot of the mirror. Bob chuckled like a rattling chain.
“Most people do that there,” he said. He waited while I wiped bile from my lips and tears from my face. I couldn't take much more of this torment. Hall of Mirrors indeed.
“Can I go home now?”
Bob smiled, a plastic doll move on his inhuman face. “Only way out is the exit at the end. This way.” He led me to a black framed mirror with a plaque that said “Depressed”. Myself, in old home clothes and no pretense of any kind was curled up in a corner on the floor. When it saw the real me, I/it crawled out on all fours, tears dribbling and words mumbled by sobs poured out of me.
“No one ever calls me. I never have text messages. No one likes me. No one returns my calls. No one wants to see me. I'm plain. I'm fat. I'm hideous. If I wasn't ugly and sour I wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't be hated and avoided. I wouldn't hate living. Never was anyone as unloved as me!” The image crept forward as I fell on my knees.
“All I want is love and acceptance like every other person on earth, but I'm ugly and people only use me. I hate being alone and despised...”
Every feeling of loneliness and failure crept up in my throat and I sobbed uncontrollably before the mirror Depressed. Here I realized that every word that had fallen from my lips in the Hall of Mirrors was true. My right arm began to ache, an intense soreness between my elbow and wrist. It grew worse as my stomach and head continued the symphony of pain in me. I didn’t think I'd live through it.
“Come. There's more!” Bob ushered me up and on. I thought I'd collapse any moment. I don't know what carried me. I stopped before a ostentatious gilt mirror and saw myself in a red dress, all smiles and wild gestures. My face exploded with the laugh from my mouth.
“That's SO funny! O my gosh! Did you hear about it? She really did it,” I laughed so hard and loud, as if to break the mirror before me. “O my gosh! I died. I couldn't help it. So funny right! And when Grandpa told the story of splitting his pants in the Christmas pageant...” explosive laughter again. “Oh my gosh. Tears streaming, I tell you. SO funny.”
It was like Fozzy Bear up and became a trans-species and a transgender comedian. Never had I felt so humiliated or embarrassed. My face burned with shame. My soul hurt. I couldn't justify myself anymore for my every part of my personality had been ridiculed. My own lips had portrayed my mockery. My faults, my soul, my shame, my self, what was left to destroy?
Bob moved me before a steel mirror and backed away, further than he had before. I trembled. I hurt. I ached so much. I looked at the mirror plaque labeled “Whiny”.
I saw myself in an empty church in the last pew.
“Why is my life like this? Don't you know I have dreams that you're stopping? Don't you get that I'm tired of waiting?! Don't you know how hard I work? That I talk to people about you? That I tithe all the time! That I'm honest and polite whether I want to or not!?!?! Would you please answer me!!! Don't you care for me at all??”
The church and the hall rang with silence, but for my choked sobbing.
“Fine. I can do it on my own until you feel like opening up and talking, sir.”
I rushed away from the mirror and fell on the floor in a puddle of heart break and anguish. My body hurt in every way possible.
Bob stood over me.
“Well, this is the end of our special time together. There are many other halls here we could visit, but I think we're done for today. You'll have to come back again and see more mirrors! I do hope you enjoyed your visit to this Hall of Mirrors and will tell all your friends about us. We accept visits at any time. The exit is this way.”
I was forced to stand alone and exit the Hall of Mirrors. Hall of Hell, I thought.
My body began to show bruises all over my arms. I felt them on my legs and stomach. Bruises, dark purple the size of a quarter all over me. They hurt and Bob noticed them.
“Those are normal. The darts of a woman's tongue do leave a mark now don't they... sad yet, you know the old proverb ... 'from the heart, the mouth speaketh'. Sad how many people have such black hearts. Truly disheartening for anyone who believes in mankind being redeemable. If one good person is so evil and untrue to the teachings of morality, how can anyone stand a chance?”
Bob held a very large door open and a cold light made me blink madly against the tears, less the world see me broken and sorry. I didn't want to walk outside. I didn't want people to see me. They'd see my cruel self or stupid self. I wanted to cry forever. I wanted to hide in a ball of shame, guilt and misery. I hated myself with all of my weak remaining will power. Bob indicated I'd over stayed my welcome.
“Have a nice day. Go. Go now. Quickly! Get out of here!!!” His voice rose from its monotone to almost a shrill terrified peak.
“Bob, leave yourself.” Someone behind me said, a low man's voice.
“I can't, my work isn't done.”
“I said, you are done. Be gone.” Bob disappeared on the spot with a snap, which startled me enough to turn around. The speaker stood in the doorway leading to a small room off the main Hall of Mirrors. He smiled at me and I stopped crying.
“Come. Let me show you something.”
“No! Please. Don't ask it of me. I can't bear anymore!” He held out his hand.
“Come. It won't hurt as much. Not in the least.” I don't know why, but I followed him into a dark study. Thick and comfortable chairs sat facing each other. A desk with the largest book ever laid across it. Maps, books and file cabinets lined walls except for one. The very warm, welcoming brown room had one wall with seven mirrors the size of tea trays. I shied from them, afraid.
“Ah, my mirrors are not like those that belong to Bob's employer's. You may look if you like.”
“Will it hurt?”
“I don't know. Some do. Some don't. That depends on you and what you look like.”
Suddenly tears filled my eyes.
“So it's true...” my lips trembled and I felt all my shame renewed. “What I see in the mirror is what's inside of me...” a sob escaped.
“I repeat, my dear girl, my mirrors are nothing like Bob's employer's mirrors you looked in today. My mirrors show things... differently than how you've already seen them today. That's how I work.”
The man was at ease, merely waiting to see if I would look or giving me a sanctuary from the street while I cried. I was amazed by his kindness.
“Very well,” I heaved a shuddering sigh. “I'll look.” He sat down in a high back leather chair, a tea cup in hand.
“If you want to. I like to start on the far left,” he said.
I looked into the first mirror. There was no title and I feared what may come through the gilt frame. I saw only myself as I presently was. Just me. Then it changed. I didn't encounter myself as I had in the Hall, but saw myself as a spectator would, as the man behind me might have observed. I saw myself over years of time. I saw myself at age three, praying with my parents, then at eleven when I prayed for myself on a swing by my house, and then closer to now, again, praying. Then, each glimpse connected with the next, each showing me with a child or children. My siblings, my cousins, my friends' children, campers, my niece and nephews, always with children. The man behind me spoke.
“'Let the children come unto me', 'whatever you did for the lease of these, you did for me'. Children are the ultimate in my book. There is nothing greater or worth more in this or the next world. You always accept and love the children. You always take them as they are. They seek you out and you rarely refuse them the love they ask for. They come to you as they would come to me. You receive them as I would, with joy and love.”
He returned to his tea and I moved to the next mirror, identical to the first. I saw myself singing and playing bassoon. I saw myself playing duets, singing in choir, playing in groups or accompanying, or just in the hallways for fun. I saw myself practicing for hours. I saw myself crying over notes and scales, passages and symphonies. I struggled and prevailed.
“You have more passion in a hobby than some people have in their entire life,” he said. “You care deeply for music. It touches you and changes you as few things in life can. Your passion is breathtaking and is, forgive the pun, music to my ears. Your struggles and hard work please me all the more. Your sound, especially when your soul is in it, is a sweet sound in my ear, like a shepherd boy with a harp – only a girl with a bassoon and a voice. Your passion spurs you on in many pursuits and its one of my delights.”
I wiped tears from my cheeks and moved to the third mirror. I saw myself laughing and people laughing with me. I saw friends and family laughing. I saw this without shame or blushing.
“Your laugh is loud and large for so is your love of humor and joy. The tears you shed now irritate you for sorrow is not in your nature. You see the fun in things, you make things fun and celebrate life. Sometimes it can be annoying, but so is a rose that grows in a corn field and smothers the shallow corn roots or as a careless mother cat that sits on her kitten and smothers it. The cat knows not that it suffocates the kitten nor does the rose realize it kills the corn. It is just doing as a rose does and as a cat does. You will learn to control the power of your humor and loud expression,” he chuckled into his tea. “As you grow, let it grow and use it for me. I love to laugh too.”
I moved to the fourth mirror. I saw a red blob of paint fluctuating in space. After a moment it began to gyroscope in patterns forming roses, hearts and blossoming outward as it danced and grew. I blinked and it was gone. My hands were extended and cupped to hold a drop of water. Water dripped into my hands, soon trickling, and then pouring and running in a stream out of my hands. I blinked and it was gone. I saw fire and books were feeding the fire. They didn't burn, but were shelved within the blaze and with each one, the flames rushed higher, wider and the heat became more intense. I blinked and it was gone.
“This is your last mirror today. What you saw is what is yet to come. The heart, the water, the fire is you. You will begin to see yourself change, my lady. Your love will grow, expand, and begin to overflow, more than you can hold, as you have never experienced. You will learn to love a lot people. You will learn love as you have never known it. It will be quite a journey. Your passion, your acceptance of children, your joy and humor will soon grow as a result of your love growing. It may hurt and it will be a process, but the result will be amazing.”
“What of the other mirrors?”
“These are for when you are older. Other journeys lie there. The last is one you see only when you are called home. The last earthly remembrance before one leaves for home. You will see them someday, dear. Now, it is time for you to leave. Only remember my joy in the things I have shown you. There are many things inside of you. Some ugly, but also some things I esteem greatly. You should be ashamed of the refuse in you and work to destroy it while strengthening the good. Know you were made for more, so glory can shine in you. The rest is just earthly wrappings and everyone is human.” He finished his cup of tea.
“The door is there. Feel free to visit anytime. The mirrors are not always on display, but you can always come talk to me. Nothing would make me happier than to have tea with you.”
I said good day and walked out into clear rain, but with a warmth within, planning on returning the next day for tea.
8/2011
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