the mirror reveals itself

Subtitled: “holy moly” in past tense.

It was a Sunday night, and I was in the last place I wanted to be, doing the last thing I wanted to be doing: standing at my job.

Life often finds me, rarely where I want to be, when I want to be there. So, against life, standing on the borders of a dream, a figure approached. As my vision re-focused into reality, I saw it was a gentle old woman tottering up toward the register. She was dressed, appropriately for the frigid conditions, in a floor length fur coat.

What first went through my mind was interestingly NOT, “who does she think she is? Or is she not aware that fur is murder!” Albeit, my views are indifferent, I caught myself wondering whether or not the coat was a genuine fur.

“Can I help you?” (as I say in robotic monotony)…her answer no more than a whisper, but I understood. She mumbled her last name, and I scurried to find her prescription. I stood there, as patient as a squirrel waiting for spring, listening to her quiet muttering while she documented the check she was preparing. As this archetypical granny handed me her check, irony struck me like an arrow, straight through my white lab coat. What precision, as if aimed directly at me.

I saw in her silence, that the woman was resonating volumes more than those whispers. The moment after she extended her arm to hand me the check, I saw the hint of a mirror reflecting her soul to me. I was caught by surprise as her motions exposed a gaping hole severing her fur coat, at the seam where the sleeve met the bodice. And through that hole, more was revealed than just the sweater underneath. I saw through the old lady, to a once beautiful young woman, a visionary, a lover. But it seems time tore through that reality, leaving another.

I saw a woman, striving hard to sew together a former life… what was left of her youth. The vanity of youth is verily a transient bliss. Its allure so seductive, we wage war against time, in a fruitless attempt to grasp the remnants of what appeared to be of such cherished value. With disingenuous assurance, she flaunted this paradox, perhaps completely unaware of the proverbial Judas betraying her in the back. Lurking behind her, following her like a shadow. And as a mirror reflects in merciless detail, she was exposed through that hole. Uncovered.

I had never imagined being in the presence of such palpable irony. Its purpose only for me to understand, and articulate the anthology of meaning that resides within a simple hole. I indulged in the lucidity of my introspection, amused that I drew from that hole, like water from a well. I contemplated the thought of divulging my secret, but perhaps she was already aware of the phenomenal betrayal taking place right behind her. I muse over the likelihood, that she would never realize the transcendent poetry emanating from the emptiness inside.

She faded into the distance, like a mirage.