The Mirrored Face

Some of you might be aware that I have been in the hospital for the last month. This is a writing I did in the early days of being here.

The light of the sun touches my face as I gaze out the window. I close my eyes and begin to feel my muscles along my shoulders. They are taut with the feeling that if they were to be plucked, they might make a noise. The days have blended into each other with the movement of a stop motion movie. Thoughts and images dance through my mind at times like a valse lente. At other times they rush by like a river that has crested its banks. Suddenly, I am snapped back into the present moment by a door slamming shut. By this time I realize that the sun has moved away but I am in the same spot. With the sudden quickness like the snapping of fingers, I am quickly whisked to a moment that is frozen in time. It’s as if everything has been placed on a blanket that was shook high into the air. Just as quickly everything paused in mid- flight. Despite everything being paused in mid- flight. Despite everything being paused, I can still move around. I begin to move to the left and to the right, turning this way and that. I methodically walk between the different objects and people who have been paused. This is intensified due to the fact that entire scenes are now still. I walk through the door of the one scene, realizing that I had walked into a shower room. In a dream- like motion, I take another step and then another. Continuing in the dream state, I walk past a bench built into the wall. Looking into the shower, I see the form of a naked man. Stepping closer, I center myself in front of the man’s body. Instantly, I realize that while I am looking at the body of a man, with a knot tied around his neck, his head has been replaced with a mirror. In its reflection are two sad eyes staring back at me. It dawns on me that I am looking at myself. In the image, I turn away. The scene changes and I am holding my nephew, wrestling. We are sitting on a couch, like a father and son that I will never be or have. I watch the images in the mirror play out, my nephew eventually snuggles down next to me. Though muted, I watch as he and I talk back and forth. Even while the muted conversation continues, the scene floats away in the mirror like that of a beautifully colored leaf floating away in an autumn breeze. With a kaleidoscope vision, the scene in the mirror transforms into a scene of myself sitting in a kayak as the sun comes up over the mountains. I reach out and touch the surface of the water with my hands. The warmth of the sun slowly and tenderly touches my face as the water birds awaken, beginning to talk to each other. Explosively, the scene fractures into a thousand symmetrical objects. With a hand’s twist of the scope, a new image appears. I’m sitting on rocks as the mist of the Italian- French riviera ocean kisses my face. My lover is sitting next to me as I reach for the knapsack that is packed full with cold cuts, fresh baked bread, a bottle of wine, and two plastic wine cups. Deftly, I insert the corkscrew and pull out the cork with a slight pop. Just as smoothly, I pour the dark red liquid out of the bottle into the two cups. I place the bottle into the crevice of the rocks and then take a slow sip of the aged wine. I glance out at the crashing waves. There is a stillness that embraces my lover and I as we quietly sit still looking out at the water. Just like that, the scene disappears and a blank mirror reflects back at me as if waiting for me to paint the final scene… With the quickness of a wing in the air, the light of the sun touches my face as I gaze out the window.