His head feels heavy and stupid. He blinks
his eyes and looks around. The light hurts him and he has to squint. Standing
in front of him is a strange and beautiful woman. She has bare feet but is
richly adorned…beautiful like a gypsy or an Arab girl. Her skin glistens like
oil in the lamplight: hair as shiny as silk, lips like rubies, and eyes as
black as coal.
They are in some kind of tent with richly
coloured wall hangings. There are brass lamps hanging at the corners and
incense burners on little tables by the entrance. The boy is lying on a
sumptuous divan made of luminescent green silk with red and gold thread. It is
as soft as goose down. Two sand scorpions circle each other in a bronze dish on
a table nearby, tails akimbo, quivering in expectation.
The woman speaks to him but it is a foreign
language and the boy has no idea of what she is saying. She looks friendly
though.
In one corner, on the floor, sits an ugly,
misshapen creature…probably some kind of pet. The boy doesn’t like the look of
it. It has very sharp teeth.
“Where am I?” asks the boy.
The woman barks back a guttural reply which
means nothing to him.
“Where is the old lady….OLD LADY?” he
enunciates. “The messenger?”
The woman shrugs her shoulders, then turns
and says something to the creature in the corner. It also just shrugs its
shoulders. The woman turns back to the boy and gives him a great beaming smile.
She too has very sharp teeth. The boy doesn’t know this is the custom of her
people. He is suddenly afraid of her. It reminds him too much of…..he almost
remembers. He begins to back away, but the more he backs away, the more the
woman smiles and comes closer.
“GO AWAY!” he shouts at her and the woman
retreats, nearly bumping into a large covered object in the centre of the room.
She has another long confabulation with the creature and then turns to the boy
again.
“Chie,” she says, pointing at the object.
“Durr.”
The boy doesn’t like this one bit. Who are
these people…and where are his friends? Then a chill walks up his spine and his
head begins to clear. What if this is the demon woman? The full realization
hits him in a rush. He has been captured. She is going to suck out his soul.
Well, that’s what the messenger said. That’s probably why she has such sharp
teeth. Like a vampire. He wonders if she’ll bite him in the neck…or where? He
puts his hands up to his throat and watches her warily.
“Munn ee jee,” says the woman, holding her
palms upwards, inviting him to come forward. Then she gestures excitedly at the
cloth covered object.
“Chie,” she says again, and with a swift
movement whisks away the cloth to reveal a large black mirror, set in an
intricately carved ebony frame.
“Chie,” she says again, pointing at the
mirror, and despite himself, the boy can’t help looking into the murky depths.
At first he sees nothing…but as the mist begins to clear he sees a young boy
looking back at him. He knows it is himself. He has seen his reflection often
enough in pools and puddles. The only difference is that the boy is dressed in
strange clothes. He has shoes and socks on…and fancy looking short pants with a
leather belt. The shirt is very white and very clean, without any tears or
holes in it. The boy’s hair is also short and neatly combed.
Unaware of himself he has climbed off the
bed and is now standing in front of the mirror. It is fascinating. He can’t
stop looking. Like Narcissus he is absolutely in love with what he sees and
can’t let go of the reflection. Time goes by and he watches in awe as the boy
before him begins to grow older. Still he cannot tear his eyes away.
More time goes by. And still more…seven
years in fact, and still he stands, transfixed, looking at his image which is
now a young man in the prime of his life. The man is well dressed in natty long
pants with a jacket and tie. Behind the image he can see a glass tower rising
high into the sky.
Then something new happens. The young man
turns and walks down a road. There are strange looking houses on either
side…all neatly in a row. The young man stops and stands at the kerb. He is
waiting. Soon a red bus comes into sight. He doesn’t know how he knows it’s a
bus. He just does. The young man gets onto the bus and hangs his hand on a
leather strap to steady himself. For a while he stands there and sways with the
motion of the bus, then the bus stops again and a woman gets on and brushes
past him as she walks to her seat. She is a pretty woman and the young man
cannot take his eyes off her.
After a while the woman looks up and notices
the young man. Their eyes lock, and for a very long moment they are one person.
The woman is the first to look away and her cheeks go bright red.
Then the scene changes and the woman is
lying in a child’s playground, crying. It is empty because it is night time and
all the children are asleep. The young man is watching her from the bushes. He
feels sorry for her.
The scene changes again and this time the
young man is standing on a pavement staring intently at a house on the other
side of the road. It is still night time. The house looks vaguely familiar to
the boy. He instinctively feels that this is where the pretty lady lives. The
young man stands quite still. Patiently. More time goes by. Then suddenly a
noise is heard…a wailing type of sound. A flashing blue light comes towards
them down the road and the boy feels himself falling into the mirror.
