The Mirror

“Can we begin our journey from nowhere?” he asked and I pretended oblivious of his sudden inquisitiveness. Will he repeat that stupid question? I looked sidelong at him and saw that he was serious. He was staring straight into my face as if to catch any slight movement and I felt like a fumbling school kid.

Do we ever begin our journey? Why he should bother about a starting point when there’s no start at all? Journey belongs to someone else or something else. How should I know who or what? A direct answer would be dangerous, as it would lead to more questions. I am tired of these doubts and speculations. The other day I had dreamt sitting amidst a group of strange people in a faraway land - men, women and children, may be a Red Indian village, in a vast compound marred by shrubs and dome-shaped wigwam homes. Nobody said anything. We just sat there, not moving a muscle for hours. The weathered faces and queer headgears had turned brighter in the moonlight, which lay motionless on an equally motionless terrain. Our journey seemed to have no beginning nor any end, but it went on for ages. When I woke up, I had a strange feeling that I was already dead and gone.

“Are you deaf or am I speaking to a dead man?” He was still staring, this time his eyebrows a bit raised. I saw his eyebrows had some grey hairs, poking fun at the very question he was asking. All these years I had been giving him straight answers for whatever vague or ambiguous questions he had. And he had become more demanding these days.

“What was that you were asking?”

 “Our journey…can it start from nowhere?”

“But I thought you were asking whether I am deaf or dead.”

“That was my second one.”

“Should I answer the first or the second first?”

He smiled and moved a little closer. “I know what you are up to. See, this time I do not want a clear-cut or convincing answer from you. But you have to listen to what I have got to say…” the smile disappeared from his face and his lips twitched. Something was coming. A wave of nausea swept over me.

“I do not know whether this happened yesterday or the day before. I am not sure whether it ever happened. But I know it should be happening at some point of time in anyone’s life.” He lingered for a moment as if searching for the right words. The room was unpleasantly cold and quiet. I could hear him breathing hard.

“How long I had been asleep, I am not sure. It was quite dark when I got up, day or night, I didn’t know. Some strange thoughts led me straight outside and I was in the middle of a desert, not a soul around. I felt very lonely and wanted to walk thinking that I would bump into something, an encounter that would shake me up from the very roots. You know, I walked and walked, dragging my bare feet through the silky sands, climbing up and down the dunes. Nothing happened. The sky above me remained blank, no sun, no moon, no stars, no clouds and no colours. But there wasn’t darkness or any light, just the sky above and the sands beneath me. Me…? Suddenly I couldn’t feel myself. I had disappeared. I tried to feel my face, my hands, legs…what could I feel them with? There was nothing…not even the sky or the sands. All had evaporated into some void…” he stopped and was panting.

“You…who are you?” I could hardly speak. But he wasn’t listening to me anyway.

“You see, I am nowhere now. And I think I can begin my journey, fresh from here.” He grinned and remained still.

I felt my right hand groping on the table and it found something round, hard and cold. It felt like a paper weight and I threw it at him with whatever strength I could muster. And I heard the glass breaking. It was all around me, lying scattered, the bits and pieces of glass. I had broken the mirror on the wall and he had just vanished.

The journey had already begun.