Chapter 6: Mirrors of Aversion

He wanders in thought, running away from his reflections. He would’ve burnt them to the ground, only if…he could find the fire that would burn water down.

      The picture he had confidently put up on display for the world, was a pleasant surprise to him when he had first found it recently. He had never, in more than three decades, had seen this particular picture ever. There was something about this guy, he felt, as he looked back in time at himself. This two foot tall guy was happy. His smile was infectiously confident. What was he so happy and confident about? He was happy, but for what? Could he remember a moment from three decades and before, especially when he has just recently come across this event? 

        He clung to the image as if a baby kangaroo clings to mother. He cropped out others, and just let himself take the stage. He felt as if he had found a lost and forgotten piece of himself, and so, for the first time in a long time, and maybe for only the fourth or the fifth time in his lifetime, he put that picture, his own, as a wall paper on his phone. He was surprised to find himself fall in love… with this picture… in love with this smile from decades ago… in love with his confidence from the sands of time passed… in love with the shape of his round face… in love with the crooked mountain that his nose was… in love with a rare spark of the stars that reflected in his eyes… in love with how scare-less his face was… in love with the stature that he stood in… in love with this little guy, whom he had totally failed today. He was surprised to find himself fall in love with himself.

          Desperate to seek any motivation whatsoever, so that he could manage to not die on his own just for another day; he felt this reminder of him from a time before karm… was enough to keep him going for some more amount of good time. Nobody knew, neither the Sun or the Moon, nor himself, about how long would he live like this. Everyday brought a pain so huge and acute, he was stumped at the capacity of his own bearing of these gushing sufferings that came in tides that were a hundred feet tall… stumped to see how was he still alive… and managing a smile… no matter how unreal or cosmetic. 

A seed sowed 

and nurtured, 

slowly grows into a plant 

and then into a tree. 

An egg, when cared for 

hatches into a being 

that grows to become 

everything that it could be.

 

Everything and everyone grows 

from being nothing, non existent, 

to being just born, little and tiny… 

to reach its own maximum according to its own ability…

eventually to one day 

die and go back 

to being nothing… 

to be non existent entirely. 

          Unlike all things natural and normal, he grew not into something bigger and better, but someone uglier and avoidable unnaturally. His growth from this tiny two foot tall boy in the image that he had found from then… to this more than three decade old beast that he was now… was a growth of devastation and degrading. 

          If he were born a plant, instead of rising to the sky he was growing downward into the ground. Everything that grows rises up, but he was stuck rising down. Everything from the past looked better today, even if the past yesterday was the one he was complaining about. He was stuck in this vicious cycle of something that he could not point upon. But he did know that the more he saw his reflection in the mirror, the more he would find himself going down. 

          He was the wrong type of anchor for the ship of his own life. 

When the ship wanted to sail, 

This anchor held it down. 

When the ship of his life wanted anchorage, 

This anchor was nowhere to be found. 

          He was tired of himself, 

And of all the fake people around. 

He found it hard to keep going 

Down and down and down. 

For his present day image 

Was his daily reminder 

Of the downward growth 

That brought him frown 

And so he had once again

Banished all the mirrors 

And all his reflections 

Out from his town. 

With ignorance as his asset; he felt 

No reflections would mean nothing to frown

Painting all his mirrors black, he felt 

He would never ever have to again… see the clown. 

Little did he know, 

The beast that he had hoped to hide

Was the one standing tall 

On the other side 

Not the side of reflection you idiots 

But the real world, in place of the real guy  

Standing tall was the evil 

that had everyday devoured him all his life

And the real him was lost 

in the reflection…which was 

now covered by the darkness…that 

he himself had once used to save his life. 

The ugly reflections he had hoped to hide

We’re now his reality, his karmic strides

And thus in the image above you see only 

One side of the mirror with the ghost inside

While our hero is dead behind his reflection

 Lost to the darkness of aversion and its tides. 

Copyright Alkesh Varma

PC: Alkesh Varma