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[Redpyramidhead]

The Mirror (that's the working title)

by

Redpyramidhead



Chapeter 1

Sometimes, It troubles me...to look at myself in that mirror. Any mirror is bound to have an effect on one's self based on how critical you are of your past mistakes, your present misfortunes or misguidedness, and things that you fear you may do in the future. Rarely does a mirror have the quality being to force the one in it to contfront this future, though, in such a manner as the one that rests against the wall behind the sink in my personal restroom. This room adjoins to the far corner of my bedroom, in my modest, yet comfortable 5 room apartment. There is another door on the opposite end of it leading to a second bedroom not currently in use as a bedroom, but as a cheap recording studio and study. Lately, I had not been in there. Not for a couple weeks. I had almost forgotten what it looked like.

Some mornings, just as in anybody's life, the only thing one can do is crawl to the sink and splash the cold water of the tap upon their face and hope it brings you back from your dreams. Most mornings, however, it is hard to not ask myself the question 'back to what?' Then one simply looks up agonizingly slowly in that frozen moment, that repeats itself each day, and stares into one's own sunken and exhausted eyes. What indeed. Maybe the simple fact that this transition from arguing the reality of one's dreams to arguing the reality of one's day occurs in much the same way every single day of your life, when you wake up, suggests that this very action or cycle is outside the laws of time itself. It is part of another you that wonders all the time that does not adhere to the normal laws of time of the day and, if you are slave to it, you find yourself back in bed. The rest of the world's time goes on outside your apartments walls and opportunities are lost for another you who simply isn't there in that world to miss them.

Slapping my face hard now with the cold water, having let it run almost to freezing. My hands may be numb by the cold, but their adrenaline to move sharply into my face quickens, and so do the awakening blood cells around my cheeks, mouth, and eyes. I'm flexing my jaw muscles now and baring my teeth at my image in the mirror, sufficiently scaring it away with the reality that I am awake and hostile. It turns away and looks ahead into the day. I was ready for anything if I could just get into that shower. I threw the curtain open. Once again, like my rational side had expected, there were no sadly deformed demons making mad passionate love while indulging in a mess of a bathtub full of the blood of my lost and unremembered nightmares and dreams. Like always, there was simply a somewhat unkept bathtub with a half-clogged drain, full of hair and everything else you would expect to find. I wondered if it were possible to lose one's rationality to the point where they would fully expect something out of the ordinary and, for their achievement, would see something straight out of a dream. The impossible.

I went straight to bed that evening at a reasonable time considering. I began my descent.


Chapter 2

The thing about descending into sleep is that it can only be done safely when one is not simultaneously ascending...



To be continued...


Stay tuned, guyz...


_RED_ stuff

[trunks69420]

WoW! I am really into this man... I am most definitely gonna stay tuned to this one.. hardcore... You have like a lot of different elements mixing in here and it is some kick ass story telling....


i always really like your writing... so descriptive... and in this instance in particular you have an amazing amount of depth to detail that really puts me into the mood you are setting... the description of the face ritual itsef... goddamn man... i will be awaiting more...


favorite line: "I went straight to bed that evening at a reasonable time considering. I began my descent."

[Redpyramidhead]

Hello. I am back with the next portion of this story added. It is still in rough form so yes, I realize that it would probably give an english teacher nightmare as it currently is. I will post the entire thing as it is now.

BTW, this is a work of FICTION...the reason the main character is not yet named remains to be seen for suspense issues.


THE MIRROR

by

Redpyramidhead


Chapeter 1

Sometimes, It troubles me...to look at myself in that mirror. Any mirror is bound to have an effect on one's self based on how critical you are of your past mistakes, your present misfortunes or misguidedness, and things that you fear you may do in the future. Rarely does a mirror have the quality being to force the one in it to contfront this future, though, in such a manner as the one that rests against the wall behind the sink in my personal restroom. This room adjoins to the far corner of my bedroom, in my modest, yet comfortable 5 room apartment. There is another door on the opposite end of it leading to a second bedroom not currently in use as a bedroom, but as a cheap recording studio and study. Lately, I had not been in there. Not for a couple weeks. I had almost forgotten what it looked like.

Some mornings, just as in anybody's life, the only thing one can do is crawl to the sink and splash the cold water of the tap upon their face and hope it brings you back from your dreams. Most mornings, however, it is hard to not ask myself the question 'back to what?' Then one simply looks up agonizingly slowly in that frozen moment, that repeats itself each day, and stares into one's own sunken and exhausted eyes. What indeed. Maybe the simple fact that this transition from arguing the reality of one's dreams to arguing the reality of one's day occurs in much the same way every single day of your life, when you wake up, suggests that this very action or cycle is outside the laws of time itself. It is part of another you that wonders all the time that does not adhere to the normal laws of time of the day and, if you are slave to it, you find yourself back in bed. The rest of the world's time goes on outside your apartments walls and opportunities are lost for another you who simply isn't there in that world to miss them.

Slapping my face hard now with the cold water, having let it run almost to freezing. My hands may be numb by the cold, but their adrenaline to move sharply into my face quickens, and so do the awakening blood cells around my cheeks, mouth, and eyes. I'm flexing my jaw muscles now and baring my teeth at my image in the mirror, sufficiently scaring it away with the reality that I am awake and hostile. It turns away and looks ahead into the day. I was ready for anything if I could just get into that shower. I threw the curtain open. Once again, like my rational side had expected, there were no sadly deformed demons making mad passionate love while indulging in a mess of a bathtub full of the blood of my lost and unremembered nightmares and dreams. Like always, there was simply a somewhat unkept bathtub with a half-clogged drain, full of hair and everything else you would expect to find. I wondered if it were possible to lose one's rationality to the point where they would fully expect something out of the ordinary and, for their achievement, would see something straight out of a dream. The impossible.

I went straight to bed that evening at a reasonable time considering. I began my descent.


Chapter 2

The thing about descending into sleep is that it can only be done safely when one is not simultaneously ascending...

A dream is a type of place where emotions are amplified. Everything you do or fail to do or even simply observe, has either extra intense feelings of happiness and pleasure tied to them or simply unforveable amounts of guilt dealt in heavy blows to your very soul. When one dissapoints themselves through actions in a dream, it is in this sense more real to you than when it happens while awake. Trying to convince one's self that one is not entirely responsible for one's actions and a dream and that they are much less guilty of any kind of sin if they simply dreamed it, is a very hard thing to do. It is especially hard, when you are still caught in the transition of waking up.

I lay in a meadow, somewhere in a valley between mountains. The son was hot and bearing almost straight down, but I was stripped of my shirt and in my bare feet and felt way too much at peace with my surroundings to care about any discomfort. Occasionally, the wind swept by, and I felt like some kind of entity in an ocean of nature surrounding me and encircling me into its cycle. The wind was licking me like waves of this ocean as I lay there on the shore of solace. How quick this immense thing, mother earth, seemed to be to forgive me for all my past sins against it and the cradle it wanted me to embrace all along. Here, it offered this cradle back to me through words spoken on the wind, movement of trees, songbirds, and it's all encompassing blanket of love for all of its creatures. Never before had I felt all at once so proud to be one of these creatures.

The matted grass on my back was a little rough and the creeping of unknown insects in the tall meadow around me eventually started to become unnerving again. It was now much the same way it had been right before I had ventured to lay down on my back here and ignore my usual reservations of doing so. It was all rapidly coming back to me at once at such an alarming rate that my previous tears of joy had now stopped and all I felt was their wretched residue left behind on my face.
What was one to do at that point? I felt as though I was being swarmed and crawled upon by things I was not ready for, but I could not see these things.

Mother Earth, in one last desperate attempt to comfort me, sent a messenger of love to my very hand. Something more tangible it hoped I could understand. A large butterfly, with wings of unimaginable beauty, so obviously created and being a creature of something so devine and beyond my ability to behold at that moment, flapped its wings gently at me and began to sing. The spirals of colours on its wings changed with the music and all its intricacies, excited by them and enrgized with healing and other powers and happiness. These spiraling colors mixed hues and made patterns spiraling into themselves and back out again in impossible ways. True happiness was being exhibited by this lifeform that I had no right to take away, so I tried so desperately to listen and understand.

We were alone now, in a place of death, save for that butterfly who kept singing to me now louder than ever. Now it had lost some of it's gracefulness and seemed almost afraid. Afraid that if it did not sing loud enough, it's listener would hear other things in the background that it should not hear at that moment. I became afraid and listened intently to find that whispers were coming from all around me, frighteningly close and breathing in my ear. Things had begun to crawl again that could not be seen. No, there were movements in line of site that did not belong there. These eyes, having been awakened to the point of seeing beyond conventional dimensional thinking to uncomprehensible amounts, no longer had control. Will of right and wrong had now lost its importance to me. Sore eyes quickened in pace, vibrating at unimaginable speeds, essentially seeing in all directions at once. No apparitions could hide from me now. I could see glimpses of them all and I could not turn it off.

"Let iiiiiit sing! Oh God...please let her singggg!!!!"

Despite my 3rd dimensional self's pleaing, I could see nothing but ugliness now from that graceful butterfly. It's wings took a backburner to all hell and all hell could muster at that moment had arrived in that very place of death and I knew that I was going to do it even before I started. Pulling apart those wings and crumpling them within these hands was way too easy and felt way too pleasing as it fed my adrenaline rushed muscles and teared beneath unkept fingernails and jagged teeth. Glaring down now at what was left of this beautiful and fragile butterfly, a calling came from somewhere else, and at the realization of what I had done along with the guilt pooring in at the very thought of finishing this creature of pure love off, I sunk into myself, heartbroken. I felt, as I awoke, that if I awakened improperly at this critical moment, I might bare for the entire world to see my terrible sin.


Chapter 3


This time I had had enough. These dreams would never cease to haunt me and the very notion that their emotional effect on me was very real and something I could not tell where the irrational ended and the rational began, I believed all of it for a good long couple hours that morning. I began to go through in my mind what to tell people who had known me for so long and believed I was a good person. I worried that I betrayed those very people that I loved by not letting them know what I had done in complete and utter cold blood. One does not at this point stop to ask questions about whether they are losing their mind. They simply believe that this is the way it is supposed to be.

'Go ahead. I dare you. Throw the curtain open now while you still believe!' Somewhere from deep inside me began to cackle a mocking voice which somehow had managed to inspire me to mouth those very words and smile in a way that would make your devil proud while doing it.


To Be Continued....


Stay tuned, guyz...


_RED_ stuff

[trunks69420]

You sonof a bitch... I hate when reading this only in parts... I am so fuckin tired right now and yet i still want to read more... i took 5 tylenol pm's and i was fighting back sleep just to read... such a compelling story! I really cant wait to read on!

Hurry it up.. it aint done yet !

[Piggle_humsy]

Yes Im drawn in... please give us more!

I have to put up with this from my sister when she writes stories in bits and runs them by me.. Im still waiting for one story she started about a year ago.. and hasn't finished yet! Drives me mad! lol

So please don't leave us waiting that long red!

I really liked this bit

I lay in a meadow, somewhere in a valley between mountains. The son was hot and bearing almost straight down, but I was stripped of my shirt and in my bare feet and felt way too much at peace with my surroundings to care about any discomfort. Occasionally, the wind swept by, and I felt like some kind of entity in an ocean of nature surrounding me and encircling me into its cycle. The wind was licking me like waves of this ocean as I lay there on the shore of solace.

I just like the detail and felt like I was right there and I could feel the slight breeze amongst the heat. Very Good!

Keep it comin'

Piggle
x x x x

[fantasytiger]

wow Red that is really good I wish i could write half as good as that I have only wrote one thing I am happy with but I did not continue the story. maybe I will put it up if my comp comes in

[tempted]

Wow ..i don't think there's much to say about it's just great ...GREAT....keep going i'm dieing to read some more...

[Redpyramidhead]

THANKS GUYS! It means a lot to hear such positive feedback. I may not have added in a few days, but that does not mean more is not coming sooon. As, I said...stay tuned! PEACE

_RED_ stuff

[Redpyramidhead]

Here we go. As promised. I have added to the story, again.

The Mirror

by

Redpyramidhead


(It is vital to go back and reread chapters 1 and 2 even if you have already before reading chapter 3.)


Chapter 3 - Meet Armelia


This time I had had enough. These dreams would never cease to haunt me and the very notion that their emotional effect on me was very real and something I could not tell where the irrational ended and the rational began, I believed all of it for a good long couple hours that morning. I began to go through in my mind what to tell people who had known me for so long and believed I was a good person. I worried that I betrayed those very people that I loved by not letting them know what I had done in complete and utter cold blood. One does not at this point stop to ask questions about whether they are losing their mind. They simply believe that this is the way it is supposed to be.

'Go ahead. I dare you. Throw the curtain open now while you still believe!' Somewhere from deep inside me began to cackle a mocking voice which somehow had managed to inspire me to mouth those very words and smile in a way that would make any devil proud while doing it.


***

A knock at the door...

Apparently, I had fallen back to sleep. The knock was just quiet enough that I wondered if I had dreamed it on top of everything else. I felt cold and clammy in my bedclothes which having absorbed most of the pool of sweat I had awakened into. I fumbled for my bathrobe and pulled it on over myself after several failed attempts and stumbled toward the door.

"Who...who is it?"

"Armelia," replied a very small female voice.

"Hunh...??"

"Armelia!" The voice squeaked slightly this time. "I heard something and I wanted to make sure all the people were ok."

"Uhhhhh....ummm...errrr... ok..."
Being baffled by the sound of her voice, what she had said, and the way it sounded made me forget to wonder if it were a good idea to open the door or not. After shaking the locks loose and undoing the chain before I knew why, I had opened the door and found myself looking down at a little girl with short black chin-length hair and a flowered dress. She looked to be quite the nice little thing and I hoped that her parents were the type to care that she was wandering about. She smiled up at me in a way that seemed to express relief. She stared back up at me and I stared down at her and that was the way it was for what seemed like quite a while. All the while she played with a slinky in her hands. This otherwise seemingly insignificant event had drawn me into it as if it were telling me through the moments between its words, which were many and long, that it was supposed to be telling me something. For the life of me, though, I could not make the connection. I wondered if I had awakened past the point of being able to make such connections in my mind make sense.

After what seemed to be several minutes on my end, I finally managed, "Well...ummm...you are a cute little person aren't you." I wanted to let her know what a nice little child she was for being concerned about her neighbors without making it sound awkward or threatening, but I was soon to realize that she was the one who was actually making me feel a little threatened by her presence in a few moments.

She giggled, "Yes...my mum says the same thing. How wonderful! You can see the same things!"

"Yes, quite. Can I help you? You said you heard something."

"I was playing in the hall. I heard many voices from behind this door...they sounded so angry...but...you look ok....I guess."

"My door? You see that is impossible because I live alone, miss. I am afraid you were mistaken."

"I know what I heard!" She insisted.

This exhange went back and forth for an amazingly long time which played out much the same manner of a schoolyard argument. I was too tired to deal with a small tantrum from a young girl who was no more than seven years of age, maybe eight. Plus, her insistance of hearing several angry voices from behind my door was becoming growingly disturbing to me. I only wished to guide her back to her own apartment at this point, thinking that her mother might be worried anyway.

Very unexpectedly, Armelia had decided to push past me and walk into my apartment to try and see for herself if I indeed lived alone.

"Wait....please don't come in here...."

She walked around the main living area, comically glancing behind furniture and under tables and chairs, made a face when observing my unkept bed with sheets thrown about, and even banged on several doors calling out and expecting replies. Defeated, she finally proceeded back to stand in front of me with a totally blank and slightly scared expression on her young and innocent face. Her slinky dropped to the floor and coiled up into itself. That little girl suddenly looked so fragile then. Lost in herself in emotions of total confusion. I knew immediately she probably felt she had never been proven wrong before about something she was so sure of before. Something about the meaning of that sort of thing going through the mind of such a delicate looking child right in front of my eyes made me want to look away. I could not watch something like that happen to somebody for the first time and, most of all, I could not deal with feeling partially responsible for it. I kept looking away for a few moments until I realized I could not do that, either. My head and eyes were drawn until they met her stare with dead end intensity as my full attention was sucked into this girl's very fear in her face, being worn on her sleeve like she had never known before and looking too delicate and fragile to bare.

"Noooooooooooooooo...." I tried to scream, but it got lost somewhere in my throat.

And so it went, we stood there staring for reasons we did not understand in eachother's presence for way too long. I felt immense guilt from somewhere and it disturbed me more than I dared admit to myself.


***

Eventually, I walked the young girl back to her apartment down the hall and told her mother she had a very fine citizen of a daughter who had come over to see if her neighbor was in need. I was more than pleasantly surprised to see that Armelia's mother was strikingly beautiful. Unfortunately, I felt very scrubby looking in my present state and declined her invitation to come in and have some tea as thanks for "keeping an eye an her daughter when she had escaped hers."

Back in my place, I headed for the bathroom with strict commitment to make the events of the morning, ones I was not even sure had happened, be put behind me. I flung the door open, and immediately turned towards the mirror.



Stay tuned, guyz...



_RED_ stuff

[trunks69420]

Well sir... i just finished reading the latest installment... and i am severely dissapointed... that i cant read more right now!
You have a gift sir... if this were a pay to read story i would easily pay any amount... even w/out a job... this is a really good story and you are developing it really nice and slow but at the same time... just ... damn... i cant really describe it... its not often that i am captivated by reading something...

but jesus... this is really good... i enjoy reading this story so much... and to be honest... i have it saved on my comp so i can read it at my leisure keep up the good work and i look forward to the next chapter!

[tempted]

Oh No ! Why do you do this?Where's the rest of it...arrgh i wanna read some more...quickly ...
Yep Red it's going great so far ....please don't leave us waiting for long...

Originally posted by trunks69420
i have it saved on my comp so i can read it at my leisure

...Great idea Trunks i think i'm gonna do the same...

[Piggle_humsy]

Yes Very good, The detail is so good, I can see it all in my head like a film.
I just hope this wont creep me out and leave me unable to ever look in a mirror again?

Well I wait for the next installment with bated breath...

Piggle
x x x x

[Redpyramidhead]

Here is the first part of chapter four. Be sure to read all previous chapters in order if you haven't already and even if you have try reading them again so that the story continues to present itself in your mind as a whole. There's a reason for this. Enjoy guyz. The next portion should be up soon, as well. Also, I am planning on doing some major editing. PEACE



Chapter 4 - Reawakenings



Physically, I did not see anything I did not expect to see. My face looked as I thought it would, only not as quite as bad. There were deep blackened areas underneath my sunken in eyes, which had their own somewhat bloodshot characteristic to them. I needed a shave. Extra whiskers on my face in this unkept fashion did not add any character to my look, even though a woman from long ago that I had loved had tried to convince me otherwise. Was that another lifetime? Everything felt like it was from another lifetime in front of a mirror to me. Especially this one. It and I had developed a love/hate relationship over the years. It was always careful to remind me of my faults even on a much deeper than superficial level when I showed the slightest hint of a good mood when looking into it. It knew. It knew me inside and out like a bad inside joke every time, even if that joke was known by neither of us. It was my face that stared back at me after all.

The events of the morning began to get lost in time as things did tend to do when I stared back at my reflection. Then I would find myself almost feeling like I was staring back through my reflection at me. Then maybe it was me looking back at my reflection that was me looking back through it at myself and then so on until it was a game of infinite that couldn't be won, and in the end neither side did. In the end, maybe no reality on either side of the mirror was more real than the other and the things being told on one side were no less important than the messages being shown on the other. The previous incident with the little girl in it's entirety suddenly felt like something that must have happened before today, as well. Was the memory of the same event happening the first time, which I could almost swear by in my mind at this point, actually a premonition of it occuring ahead of time? I would often feel this way about events that had happened to me later on and it would happen most often when staring through and through myself in that mirror. I let it go again, like I normally did. Suddenly, all I could think of was how wonderfully deserving I would be of a sound night's sleep that night if I could just make it through the long hard day at work. It was time to snap out of it all and do what I did best, which was to waste time until I could be lazy again. A time when I could become nother more than another inanimate object in my apartment, of which there were plenty of.


***


It was about 9:30pm. The watch on my wrist reflected the lights on the ceiling of the elevator, which did its best to keep its ancient monster of a rattling from keeping nervous passengers heading to their various floors from deciding to take the stairs in the future. It needed a purpose just like anything else, after all. Things that are invented for a certain purpose and then forgotten and never used again tend to die a slow and lonely death that my involve rusting, the gathering of mold, or anything else time can throw its way. Despite the thought, though, I had no sympathy for this elevator. It had given everybody in the building way too much trouble.

After it rumbled to a stop at the floor my apartment was on and I had gone through the doors, I had the distinct sensation that something was waiting for me right there in front of me and had indeed been waiting for a long time, but nobody was there. I called out in a nervois voice several times before I fumbled with the keys to my apartment door and managed to step through, locking the door behind me. I was suddenly very paranoid. Apparently, the safe haven from this paranoia was not my apartment, but instead the exact opposite effect was taking hold upon me. Somebody or something, was waiting for me and asking for me to do something to solve it's discomfort, but not in so many words. In fact, nothing spoke any words, which was just as well or I would have wondered if I indeed was losing it, but I could feel the strong emotion of need of attention of some kind, nonetheless. I found my way to the bathroom, despite the steady increase of emotional noise in my head. I wondered if my mirror were laughing at me as I popped pills once again right in it's face for it to see. Right in my face. I couldn't hide from my weakness as it mocked me. I never could.

Violent shaking was taking over my body and my consciousness now. Emotions were shoutin inside my head in opposite directions misfiring and bouncing of the walls of my sanity, each time dealing a deadly blow to my nerves.

"Ack! Whaaatttt....." I was salivating my words and drooling them out pathetically onto the floor. "I need...neee....siiileennnce..."

And then for some unknown reason to me at the time, as I felt compelled to turn to the forgotten door on the opposite end of the bathroom. It was nothing more than a gaping black hole.............................................. .

TO BE CONTINUED...

Stay tuned, guyz...

_RED_ stuff

[tempted]

Wow it's amazing your ability to writte ..this is turning great though i feel is a bit more spooky now than in the first 3 chapters...but i'm still loving it...keep going...

[Piggle_humsy]

Yep still hooked... I just know Im gonna get totally creeped out by this at some point as Im so easily spooked.https://www.2madcowsmoovies.com/YaBBImages/horrified.gif

What was that??!! https://www.2madcowsmoovies.com/YaBBImages/uhoh.gif
https://www.2madcowsmoovies.com/YaBBImages/scared.gif

Piggle
x x x x

[Rei]

Excellent as usual. As Piggle said, it's somewhat cinematic thanks to the way of telling. But it is also very centered on actual feelings and point of view of the character, which makes us wonder about what's coming next. Nice to read something different from poems coming from you, now and then!

[Redpyramidhead]

Hi Everyone. The Mirror returns in a new revised and edited (with some additions) form with a continuation, as well. Please excuse the triple posting.

The Mirror (that's the working title)

by

Redpyramidhead
.


Chapeter 1

Sometimes, It troubles me...to look at myself in that mirror. Any mirror is bound to have an effect on one's self, based on how critical you are of your past mistakes, your present misfortunes or misguidedness, and things that you fear you may do in the future. Rarely does a mirror have the quality of being able to force the one looking into it to confront this future, though. Especially, in such a manner as the one that rests against the wall behind the sink in my bathroom. This room adjoins the far corner of my bedroom in my modest five room apartment. Another door on the opposite end of the bathroom lead to a second bedroom not currently in use as a bedroom, but as a cheap recording studio and study. Lately, I had not been in there. Not for a couple weeks. I had almost forgotten what it looked like.

Some mornings, the only thing one can do is crawl to the sink and splash the cold water of the tap upon their face and hope it brings you back from your dreams. Most mornings, however, it is hard to not ask myself the question 'back to what?' Then one simply looks up agonizingly slowly in that frozen moment, that repeats itself each day, and stares into one's own sunken in and exhausted eyes. What indeed. There is a transition point here. First you are arguing the reality of your dreams and then you are arguing the reality of your day. I often wonder that if the disorientedness of time involved in this event, which happens seemingly every time you wake up, suggests that this very action or cycle is outside the laws of time itself. It seems to present itself as part of another you that is constantly wandering and lives by the time of a different clock that does not adhere to the normal laws of manmade time of the day and, if you are slave to it, you find yourself back in bed. The ironic part was that it also seemed to be my answer to freedom from the trap of everyday life, the devine art of balance found in some kind of spiritual center willing. Meanwhile, however, the rest of the world's time goes on outside your apartments walls and opportunities are lost for another you who simply isn't there in that world to miss them.

Slapping my face hard now with the cold water, having let it run almost to freezing, I dangerously walk the fine line of rousing myself enough to snap out of the lasting effects of sleep and angering myself to the point where I don't wish to stop. My hands may be numb by the cold, but their adrenaline to move sharply into my face quickens, and so do the awakening blood cells around my cheeks, mouth, and eyes. I'm flexing my jaw muscles now and baring my teeth at my image in the mirror, sufficiently stirring myself to the reality that I am awake and hostile. Luckily, today, this angry face turns away and looks ahead into the day. I was ready for anything if I could just get into that shower. I threw the curtain open. Once again, like my rational side had expected, there were no tiny sadly deformed demons serenading children or a gory mess of a bathtub full of the blood of my lost and unremembered nightmares and dreams. Like always, there was simply a somewhat unkept tub with a half-clogged drain full of hair, cleaning products and everything else you would expect to find. I did often wonder if it were possible to lose one's rationality to the point where they would fully expect something out of the ordinary and, for their achievement, would see something straight out of a dream. For better or for worse. The impossible.

***

That evening after returning from work, I went straight to bed at a reasonable time. Reasonable it was considering my habit of staying up quite late and paying for it the next day. I began my descent into sleep.


Chapter 2 - butterfly wings

The trick about descending into sleep and then the world of the dreaming is that it can only be done safely when one is not simultaneously ascending. Atleast this is true for me, for I fear where my self would go if I were to have what one might call an "out of body" experience.

A dream is a type of place where one's emotions are amplified. Everything you do or fail to do or even simply observe, has either extra intense feelings of happiness and pleasure tied to them or unforgivable amounts of guilt dealt in heavy blows to your very soul. When one dissapoints themselves through actions in a dream, it is in this sense more real to you than when it happens while awake. This is one way past events can haunt you, though sometimes I do wonder if future events do not hold true to the same process of finding you in your dreams, as well as events that simply did not occur at all. Trying to convince one's self that one is not entirely responsible for one's actions in a dream is much easier said than actually done. Being told that they are much less guilty of any kind of sin if they simply dreamed it, and then simply to believe that is much more than a simple matter, especially if the person who speaks this way is much less prone to such realistic and cruel dreams themselves. It is also especially hard to believe in your own good self if you are still caught in the process of waking up.

***

I lay in a meadow, somewhere in a valley between mountains. The sun was more than warm and bearing almost straight down. It seemed that I was stripped of my shirt and in my bare feet, despite the rough matted grass beneath me and all its tiny bugs, and felt way too much at peace with my surroundings to care about any discomfort. Occasionally, the warm wind swept by, highlighting the dancing glow of the golden sunchine on the edge of all the green, a green I could get lost in and never want to come back. I felt like some kind of entity in an ocean of nature surrounding me and encircling me into its cycle of all things. The wind was licking me like waves of this ocean as I lay there on the shores of the very solace I so often longed for. How quick this immense thing, mother earth, seemed to be able to forgive me for all my past sins against it and then to present its cradle that it wanted me to embrace all along. Here, it offered this cradle back to me through words spoken on the wind, movement of trees, songbirds, and it's all encompassing blanket of love for all of its creatures. Never before had I felt all at once so proud to be one of these creatures. The earth, airs, and waters seeped through me and I became part of its life giving force and I felt the miracle of life as this air and water and fed through the very veins of all creatures, from huge trees to small grasses, to...

Suddenly, it was all torn away from me in my realization that something was blocking my connection from the fauna of the earth. How could this be? I loved animals and connected with them in a way most couldnt. Now, the matted grass on my back was a little rough and the creeping of unknown insects in the tall meadow around me eventually started to become unnerving. All my usual reservations of venturing to ignore the discomfort of a ground with my bare skin to it were all rapidly coming back to me at once at such an alarming rate that my previous tears of joy had now stopped and all I felt was their staining residue left behind on my face.
Things were seemingly becoming aware of my discomfort from all around me that it seemed for my benefit were better off noknowing my fear. Things were preparing to swarm me and crawl on me that I was not prepared to face.

Mother Earth, in one last desperate attempt to comfort me, sent a messenger of love to my very hand. Something more tangible it hoped I could understand, and in its own right, a crawling thing itself. A large butterfly, with wings of unimaginable beauty, so obviously created and being a creature of something so devine and beyond my ability to behold at that moment, flapped its wings gently at me and began to sing. The spirals of colours on its wings changed with the music and all its intricacies, excited by them and enrgized with healing and other powers and happiness. It was immediately apparent that this creature understoon me on a very deep level. It was a new and wonderful friend sent to me by a new and wonderful old friend, mother earth, herself. The spiraling colors mixed hues and made patterns spiraling into themselves and back out again in impossible ways. The spectacle shimmered and flapped its wings finding the souls summoned between the notes that danced with fiery hunger for life upon those wings, catching glimpses of them between the beats. True happiness was being exhibited by this lifeform and I had absolutely no right to take away. So, there I was with this phantasmagorical butterfly I tried so desperately to listen to and understand.

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[Redpyramidhead]

Continued from last post...

Hi Everyone. The Mirror returns in a new revised and edited (with some additions) form with a continuation, as well.


Songs were sung in such whimsical and lovely spirit and I felt honoured to be the one this creature wished to share such a personal performance with me. I waited for more song as storm now approached on the horizon. I did not expect this to discourage my new friend from singing, but before I could blink the storm was upon us, and rather than feeling at one with its rain, this storm had no rain and violent dischord which was not of the musical kind began to pour heavily upon us in waves of dizzines. The butterfly and I phased out of that place and relocated then, accompanied with the weird feeling that somebody or soemthing had merely dimmed some lights and a quick scene change was taking place as if in a play, but with no audience.

I was alone now, in a place of death, save for that butterfly who had begun singing to me again now louder than ever. It had lost some of it's gracefulness and rythmn in its song and seemed almost afraid. Afraid that if it did not sing loud enough, it's listener would hear other things in the background that it should not hear at that moment. Things it was not ready to deal with or perhaps no one should ever have to deal with. I became afraid and did exactly what my instincts had told me I was supposed to avoid and listened intently to find that whispers were coming from all around and breathing from frighteningly close by. Things had begun to crawl again. They were ready to swarm at any moment and do things that should never be done by things that cannot be seen. No, there were movements in line of site that did not belong there, awareness of them not confined to the corners of my eyes. These eyes, having been awakened to the point of seeing beyond conventional dimensional thinking to uncomprehensible amounts, no longer had control. Sore eyes quickened in pace, vibrating at unimaginable speeds, essentially seeing in all directions at once. Will of right and wrong in this moment began to lose its importance. No apparitions could hide from me now. Glimpses of them all were being caught left and right in slower and slower moving movements and it could not be turned off. Not now. Not beyond this point of no return. So I begged for an out...

"Let iiiiiit sing! Oh God...please let her singggg!!!!"

Despite the pleaing of my third dimensional self, I could see nothing but ugliness now from that graceful butterfly. It's wings took a backburner to all hell and all hell could muster at that moment had arrived in that very place of death and I knew that I was going to do it even before I started. Pulling apart those wings and crumpling them within these hands was all too easy and all too pleasing as it fed my adrenaline rush and tearing beneath unkept fingernails and jagged teeth ensued. Glaring down now at what was left of this beautiful and fragile butterfly, a calling came from somewhere else came to me, and at the realization of what I had done along with the guilt pouring in as a great flood at the very thought of finishing this creature of pure love off and putting an end to its life, I sunk into myself, heartbroken. The image of a butterfly, stripped of its life's song, looking beyond repair, was the last thing I saw. The moan of utter and total guilt and sadness in one of its most primal forms awoke me. I felt, as I awoke, that if I awakened improperly at this critical moment, I might bare for the entire world to see my terrible sin.


Chapter 3 - meet Armelia


I sat on the living room couch munching on cold cereal. I had drowned it in sugar and sat there ruining my teeth which I was not sure I would have the will to brush that day making it all the more a reminder of my personal sloth. These dreams would never cease to haunt me and the very notion that their emotional effect on me was very real and something I could not tell where the irrational ended and the rational began, I believed all of it at times before allowing myself to forget it as the day went on. I began to go through in my mind what to tell people who had known me for so long and believed I was a good person. I worried that I betrayed those very people that I loved by not letting them know what I had done in complete and utter cold blood, be it in a dream or not. One does not at this point stop to ask questions about whether they are losing their mind. They simply believe that this is the way it is supposed to be.

A face with sunken in eyes that ached, felt filled with crust from sleep, with dark and obvious black circles beneath them, bloodshot and burning, and watering. A face with ears that clearly showed dried earwax, a nose with untrimmed nose hairs and mucus running out, unshaven, matted and entangled hair, unkept teeth jagged and yellow, rotten and decaying, cold sweat pasted on, and tear-stained skin red in shame. A face that did not belong in a mirror. A face that could have things on it that are said to be impossible outside the world of dreams, for better or worse.

'Go ahead. I dare you. Throw the curtain open now while you still believe!' Somewhere from deep inside me began to cackle a mocking voice which somehow had managed to inspire me wickedly to mouth those very words and smile in a way that would make the foulest and toothiest fiend proud.

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[Redpyramidhead]

Continued from last post...

Hi Everyone. The Mirror returns in a new revised and edited (with some additions) form with a continuation, as well.


***

A knock at the door...

Apparently, I had fallen back to sleep. The knock was just quiet enough that I wondered if I had dreamed it on top of everything else. I rolled out of bed very slowly, but with all the speed I could muster at the moment. I felt cold and clammy in my bedclothes which had absorbed most of the pool of sweat I had awakened into. Then again it seemed most of it had soaked through and into my skin. I fumbled for my bathrobe and pulled it on over myself after several failed attempts and stumbled toward the door.

"Who...who is it?"

"Armelia," replied a very small female voice.

"Hunh...??"

"Armelia!" The voice squeaked slightly this time. "I heard something and I wanted to make sure all the people were ok."

"Uhhhhh....ummm...errrr... ok..."
Being baffled by the sound of her voice, what she had said, and the way it sounded made me forget to wonder if it were a good idea to open the door or not. After shaking the locks loose and undoing the chain before, the door was opening and I found myself looking down at a little girl with short black chin-length hair and a flowered dress. She looked to be quite the nice little thing and I hoped that her parents were the type to care that she was wandering about. She smiled up at me in a way that seemed to express relief. She stared up at me and I stared back down at her and that was the way it was for what seemed like quite a while, all the while her playing with a slinky piling into itself from hand to hand repeatedly. This otherwise seemingly insignificant event had drawn me into it as if it were telling me through the moments between its unspoken words that it was supposed to be telling me something. For the life of me, though, I could not make the connection. Because of this, I wondered if I had awakened past the point of being able to make such connections in my mind be brought together.

After what seemed to be several minutes on my end, I finally managed, "Well...ummm...you are a cute little person aren't you." I wanted to let her know what a nice little child she was for being concerned about her neighbors without making it sound awkward or threatening. I was soon to realize, however, that she would end up causing more of an awkward and possibly threatening vibe to my current state of mind, however.

Apparently, not as much time as I thought had passed, judging by her tone of voice in her reply. She giggled, "Yes...my mum says the same thing. How wonderful! You can see the same things!"

"Yes, quite. Can I help you? You said you heard something."

"I was playing in the hall. I heard many voices from behind this door...they sounded so angry...but...you look ok....I guess." She smiled again. She was still at it with that slinky.

"My door? You see that is impossible because I live alone, miss. I am afraid you were mistaken."

"I know what I heard!" She insisted. Now there was more conviction in her voice.

This exhange went back and forth for an amazingly long period of time which played out in much the same manner as a schoolyard argument. I was too tired to deal with a small tantrum from a young girl who was no more than seven years of age, maybe eight. Plus, her insistance of hearing several angry voices from behind my door was becoming growingly disturbing to me. I only wished to guide her back to her own apartment at this point, thinking that her mother might be worried, anyway. And, in our times, I did not want to be found talking to this child and be accused of something.

Very unexpectedly and to my dismay, Armelia had decided to push right past me and march straight into my apartment like a girl on a missiong to try and see for herself if I did indeed live alone.

"Wait....please don't come in here...." I was very concerned about what was going on for several reason, including one I could not place at the moment.

She walked around the main living area, comically glancing behind furniture and under tables and chairs, made a face when observing my unkept bed with sheets thrown about, and even banged on several doors calling out and expecting replies. Thankfully she did not go into my bathroom, which would have been quite embarrassing considering the mess.

Defeated, she finally proceeded back to stand in front of me with a totally blank and slightly scared expression on her young and innocent face. Her slinky dropped to the floor and coiled up into itself. That little girl suddenly looked so fragile then. Lost in herself in emotions of total confusion. I knew immediately she probably felt she had never been proven wrong before about something she was so sure of before. Something about that going through the mind of such a young looking child right in front of my eyes made me want to look away. I could not watch something like that happen to somebody for the first time and, most of all, I could not deal with feeling partially responsible for it. I kept looking away for a few moments until I realized I could not look away, either. I felt caught in between two extremes and the only to move on past that moment was to give in to one of them. My head and eyes were drawn until they met young Armelia's stare with dead intensity as my full attention was sucked into this girl's very fear in her face, being worn on her sleeve like she had never known before and looking too delicate and fragile for me to bare. I did not know what was going on or why this person I had never met before had such an effect on my emotions. It was too intense for my mental state.

"Noooooooooooooooo...." I tried to scream, but it got stopped somewhere in my throat. I choked it down like food swallowed the wrong way. I could not allow myself to scare this child in my presence. Despite my efforts, though, I felt immense guilt from somewhere and it disturbed me more than I dared admit to myself.


***

I walked the young girl back to her apartment down the hall and told her mother she had a very fine citizen of a daughter who had come over to see if her neighbor was in need. I was more than pleasantly surprised to see that Armelia's mother was strikingly beautiful. Unfortunately, I felt very scrubby looking in my present state and declined her invitation to come in for tea as thanks for "keeping an eye an her daughter when she had escaped hers." Atleast, I now knew I did not look as bad as I thought I had and I was now ready to face the mirror.

Back in my place, I headed for the bathroom with strict commitment to making the events of the morning, ones I was not even sure had occured, put behind me. I flung the door open, and immediately confronted the mirror and all that entails.




Chapter 4 - Awakenings



Physically, I did not see anything I did not expect to see. My face looked as I thought it would, only not quite as bad. There were deep blackened areas underneath my sunken in eyes, which had their own somewhat bloodshot characteristic to them. I needed a shave. Extra whiskers on my face in this unkept fashion did not add any character to my look, even though a woman from long ago I had tried to convince me otherwise. Was that another lifetime? Everything felt like it was from another lifetime in front of a mirror to me. Especially this one. It and I had developed a love/hate relationship over the years. It was always careful to remind me of my faults even on a much deeper than superficial level when I showed the slightest hint of a good mood when looking into it. It knew. It knew me inside and out like a bad inside joke every time, even if that joke was known by neither of us. It was my face that stared back at me after all.

The events of the morning began to get lost in time as things did tend to do when I stared back at my reflection. Then I would find myself almost feeling like I was staring back through my reflection at me. Then maybe it was me looking back at my reflection that was me looking back through it at myself and then so on until it was a game of infinite that couldn't be won, and in the end neither side did. In the end, maybe no reality on either side of the mirror was more real than the other and the things being told on one side were no less important than the messages being shown on the other. The previous incident with the little girl in it's entirety suddenly felt like something that must have happened before today, as well. Was the memory of the same event happening the first time, which I could almost swear by in my mind at this point, actually a premonition of it occuring ahead of time? I would often feel this way about events that had happened to me later on and it would happen most often when staring through and through myself in that mirror. I let it go again, like I normally did. Suddenly, all I could think of was how wonderfully deserving I would be of a sound night's sleep that night if I could just make it through the long hard day at work. It was time to snap out of it all and do what I did best, which was to waste time until I could be lazy again. A time when I could become nother more than another inanimate object in my apartment, of which there were plenty of.


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[Redpyramidhead]

Continued from last post...

Hi Everyone. The Mirror returns in a new revised and edited (with some additions) form with a continuation, as well.


***


It was about 9:30pm. The watch on my wrist reflected the lights on the ceiling of the elevator, which did its best to keep its ancient monster of a rattling from keeping nervous passengers heading to their various floors from deciding to take the stairs in the future. It needed a purpose just like anything else, after all. Things that are invented for a certain purpose and then forgotten and never used again tend to die a slow and lonely death that may involve rusting, the gathering of mold, or anything else time can throw its way. Despite the thought, though, I had no sympathy for this elevator. It had given everybody in the building way too much trouble.

After it rumbled to a stop at the floor my apartment was on and I had gone through the doors, I had the distinct sensation that something was waiting for me right there in front of me and had indeed been waiting for a long time, but nobody was there. I called out in a nervois voice several times before I fumbled with the keys to my apartment door and managed to step through, locking the door behind me. I was suddenly very paranoid. Apparently, the safe haven from this paranoia was not my apartment this evening, but instead the exact opposite effect was taking hold of me. Somebody or something, was waiting for me and asking for me to do something to solve it's discomfort, but not in so many words. In fact, nothing spoke any words, which was just as well or I would have wondered if I indeed was losing it, but I could feel the strong emotion of need of attention of some kind, nonetheless. I found my way to the bathroom, despite the steady increase of emotional noise in my head. I took the two aspirin with the tap water. As I glanced in the mirror, I was startled to see that the door to the unused bedroom, which I kept closed, appeared to be open. Sharply burned with a sensation of being startled, I quickly jerked my head to look towards the door, but it was clearly closed. Then, in what seem like one motion I glanced back into the mirror to see that the door appeared open again, jerked my head back towards the door to see it closed and then back to the mirror where it was also closed this time. At this point, I was quite dizzy and did not wish to play whatever game my mind had concocted with its favorite mirror to play with me. I was going to head to the couch to lay down.

***


I floated unwantingly through the bathroom, whisking by shower curtain on the right with unseen creatures muttering in garbled expressions from behind it and a mirror to my left, and stopping there only a few inches above the ground. I looked up and realized with complete shock that it was not only wide open, but the door itself was missing. Once a door to nothing more than another room in my apartment, it was now a gaping hole in my sacred home. Walls and floorboards creaked and twisted almost to breaking point while a mirror creaked and then shattered somewhere behind me to my left as I was left flowing towards the gaping hole, now seeminly looming at a dizzying and impossible angle below me.


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