The man in the mirror

This story is dedicated to Sophie. "If you were a president, you'd be Babebraham Lincoln."



Poor Rhea. She was a lovely girl who had fallen on hard times.She had lots of sisters and, of all of them, she was quite the jolliest. She told great stories. She was funny and vivacious and her laugh was contagious. Unfortunately, though, the mistress in whose service she lived was very cross with her. With her chatter, her jokes and her cheerful temperament, she had been deliberately employed to distract her mistress from the fact that her husband, shall we say, played away. Or sometimes just to distract her mistress from jealous musings and hot temper. When, one day, the mistress found out she had been duped, she mistress looked for revenge - although Rhea was, sadly, only the scapegoat.

I told you that Rhea loved to talk. Well, her punishment from her mistress -who had the devil and sorcery in her when she was in the worst of funks - was that she would be struck dumb. A song, a joke, a story might be for ever on her lips, but she could not share. Instead, the most tiresome thing ever: she would simply only be able to repeat the last words she had heard spoken. So, Rhea, while able to use her voice, could only imitate. She left her band of sisters and went, with a melancholy beyond words, to live all alone. She lived, I think, amongst the trees on the high slopes of the mountain.

One day, though, a fine looking man was hunting with his friends amongst these trees. he got separated from them and was disoriented and quite, quite lost. Rhea saw him and was spellbound: he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She was spirited away; time stood still and nothing else mattered. And for a moment, she even forgot the wicked punishment meted out to her by her nasty former mistress.

Ah, but reader. The fine face can hide a cruel and self-interested interior. Where there is little kindess or admiration for the kindness, wit or imagination of others: only a delight in oneself.. Ascanius had grown up pleasing himself and, because he loved only himself, he had never felt what Rhea felt now. So Ascanius wandered and Rhea followed him at a distance. Eventually, he began to look a little unsettled:

"Where are you?" he shouted.

Of course, Rhea had no choice to but to copy him. He heard her, of course.

"Who are you?"

She echoes back

"Answer me!"

Oh, the painful irony of this. He could never answer her: never give what she would be able to give. Joy and life and..

"I told you: answer me!"

She could hear the anger in his voice. He accused her to her face of being a temptress and of mocking him. Rhea was in tears. His words came thick and fast, ever more cruel and Rhea - while she repeated these awful words back, bitter and repugnant to her - lay on the moss and cried.

I hadn't told you how beautiful Rhea was.She would have taken away your breath. I have heard of people like that. Even wished that, one day, I could be like that for someone. Haven't you? Think about this old Urdu poem "In love there is no difference between life and death:/ We live by gazing on the face that takes away our breath" Yes, think about that for a while? You would have fallen in love with Rhea, even though you might have found a bit of a chatterbox sometimes. Ascanius, though, did not see her beauty. While she was dumb in her way; in his, he was blind. Because what happened next was this.

Eventually, Ascanius stopped insulting her. Not because he had no more mean things to say, but because he was worn out. So he lay down and, yes, his breath was taken. Because he looked into a clear mountain pool as he rested and saw what was for him the most beautiful face he had ever seen. And he fell immediately and hopelessly in love - not with Rhea, of course, but with the reflection that he had been yet to see: his own. He stretched out his arms to the face in the pool, spoke sweetly and, of course, the handsome reflection whispered back in the voice of Rhea, ending in an "I love you." How those words hurt Rhea. Ascanius tried time and time again to hold the figure in the pool, clasp him and bring him closer. He looked and looked, and cried and the figure cried back, giving back to him what he gave himself. They were now, he thought, inseparable. And, in time, Ascanius became desparate and threw himself into the pool to catch his loved one. In the depths there were only stones and choking weed and darkness and his own death.

So he was gone and Rhea, bound to him still, could not save him. I heard that she simply wasted away as she longed for him. We can see how futile this was and how unworthy he was, but we don't always make wise choices, we know. We might think with longing for others who can never return our love. Maybe you could go to that mountain and try to talk to Rhea; tell her that you are there and that you understand, maybe? She would answer you back, though, because while her body is gone, she is still doomed to wander and echo back what we say. But you would be company and understanding for her and, maybe, when the light is dappled and the shadows lengthen, you might just catch the shadow of a beautiful girl...

Nobody ever found the body of our vain and unkind man, who had fallen in love only with himself, but people from this part of the world say that flowers sprang up around the pool where he drowned and where Rhea mourns him -although only in her fleeting and shadowy self - to this day. It is a shame that sometimes love chooses us and we seem powerless. Most important, though: do not think yourself the centre of the known world but also do not, however swept away, think this of another. I promise you that it will not end well.



A retelling of the story of Echo and Narcissus. I won't say that again.