StRanGer iN ThE MirRoR
What do you do when you are flung out of your comfort zone into the thorny ambush of harsh reality? You cower with fright, you buckle under pressure, you tremble with rage at being abandoned so quickly. You feel betrayed and cheated because you were uprooted from the place to which you had grown attached. You hold tightly onto your memories…there are lots of them, but they slip through your palm like golden sand. Wait… I can barely recollect anything. My mind feels empty like a vast bottomless abyss, and I am afraid if I don’t hold on, I will fall into infinite space.
People come, people go. They smile at me…I think I sense pity in their smiles…or maybe surprise? Some look at me oddly, like I am some museum piece of art. Others simply pat my hand with an assuring nod of their head. But they are still unrecognizable. My face scrunched, I try to remember…remember anything inconsequential. Damn! Nothing. I can feel the onset of a headache. I am given advice to ‘rest’ and ‘maybe things will be better when I wake up’. Okay I accept the advice without protests.
3 hours later. I wake up, groggy from the funny pills I had to take before sleeping. I still feel lost – the same feeling I had earlier in the day. I stand up on shaky feet. For the first time I see I am dressed in a flimsy pale green nightgown. It feels odd and I get the feeling I have never been a ‘nightgown’ person. Maybe I am a ‘PJs’ person. Why can’t I remember?
I walk over to the dresser and peek hesitantly into the mirror. I am scared…scared at what I will see or rather not see. As I stare persistently at the stranger in the mirror, bits and pieces of my memory start dancing in front of my eyes. Some random scenes flash past: a speeding blue Honda City…a chorus of blood-curdling screams…a loud crash…a startling explosion…some heart-wrenching cries…a heap of mangled bodies…
‘STOP! I cannot anymore…no more please!’ I sob to my reflection. It’s too stressful, my headache is nagging again. They give me some more pills. I take it quietly; I am in no position to revolt. I am in no position to do anything.
I find myself getting drowsy, being pulled into that cozy darkness again, where I do not have to fight demons, where I do not have to remember anything. Just before reaching that place, I find myself asking one simple question….WHO AM I ?
