m day eve

He slipped downstairs, tiptoeing on all fourteen marble tiles, until that varnished wooden door is within reach. He held its brass knob and pulled it, stepped out, bare foot, hair all messed up; he walked slowly along the roughly-cemented hall, wary of the sound that his heels make as it falls repeatedly against the grit. Eight, nine, ten strides it took to reach the door way. But before he walked in, he paused. He was hesitant.

The mirror was the first thing he saw upon stepping inside. It hung before him, the mirror that was big enough to cover the entire length of the wall, frameless, its age visible on some parts, stained and damaged, perhaps forgotten to be cared for.

He saw himself approaching it with dread – a ghostly shroud barely visible against the pitch black that envelops everything; everything but his eyes which seem to catch a faint stream of light from somewhere; everything but his eyes which seem to call forth a faint echo:

Seems so long ago that I used to believe, and now I’m so lost, just so lost inside my head; and I can't get out of it.

It was a sudden dawning; for memories tend to get buried, and the mind, too crowded and dusty from the accumulated rubble, piled up, as days flow into years. Yes, minds rot and decay much like souls and hearts. Hearts forget. Hearts, indeed, get distracted.

And he snapped out of his stance, reached out to the one who stood before him, and then made his way back; out into the cemented hall where his bare feet crunched the earth, and inside the wooden door with the brass knob, and up the staircase, into his bed.

In the course, he realized that he needed not a glimpse of what might be, for it has always been about remembering what once were. He saw what needs to be done.

It will take a while to collect all the fragments of the boy he once knew; but tomorrow he shall start getting him back.