Running backwards

“Please do not go…”, he painfully pleaded. She could not bear to hear his near demonic voice. “I know I have not been good, but I want to change, I need you to change me”, the voice implored. She made a gesture of looking back, but almost instantly realized the recklessness of that action. She exited the room. “Please look at me, I need you to look at me!”, he cried. As the man broke in tears, she locked the door, without conceding a mere glimpse of compassion.

Freida could barely run fast, so their persecutors were quickly catching up to them. Our protagonist looked back, and although they were still at a considerable distance, she could see the darkness in Matthew’s eyes. For a moment, she could have understood if he was the embodiment of obsession.

Albert kept pulling from Freida’s arm, looking at her, fearful, compassionate, and completely aware of their disadvantage. Freida did not show signs of fear, nor brood on her discomfort, as though oblivious to the dangerous situation.

While the persecutors closed the distance, Albert started to feel dizzy, staggering clumsily. He managed to look at his traveling companion, searching for an explanation, only to discover her similarly perplexed look.

The landscape was rapidly warping in front of them, giving way to a free floating ring-shaped gateway. They had no time to think about the potential dangers on the other side, so the three jumped in. On doing so, the gateway blocked itself, erasing the savage, zealous looks from their predators.

A piazza of spotless white marble now extended below them. Corridors bending before revealing their unapparent end departed from both sides of the piazza. Pure-white walls solemnly stood erect along those corridors, hosting hundreds of floors, each with a myriad of gaudily decorated doors. Across those floors, people in the dozens pulled from blocks of marble, carrying them towards the unseen end of the corridors.

A woman approached the group. “Welcome to this our humble abode”, she said, soberly. “My name is Sonia, I am in charge of this place”.

The crew, especially Albert, had to forcibly refocus the attention towards the woman, as the majestic view wanted to consume it all.

Sonia quickly clarified the situation. “All the unknown you are marvelling at will stay unknown to you. You are only here because I have allowed you in, and I have not done so without a purpose”, she said, emotionlessly. “You will now accompany me to the Loci”.

As they followed Sonia, the view of the divine corridors quickly faded on their backs. At a medium distance, they devised a wretched wooden door, alone and incongruous with the spectacle.

Sonia stopped before the door. “This is where your journey, our journey must continue. What you will see once you enter this door is the creative force that brought this world into order. You will see the reason you are here, now, together, and if you are keen sighted, you will understand your future. Do not fear, because all is already decided, any action you choose is inconsequential”, she said.

Our protagonist remembered Matthew’s words: “Your thoughts are predictable moves in a game you are bound to lose”.

Albert did not like Sonia’s tone, after all they had already been tricked before, and he was not willing to take a risk again. “What if I refuse to enter? What if I turn back and leave right now?”, he challenged her.

Sonia looked at him, uninterested. “Try it”, she said. “As I already said, your actions are inconsequential, both inside and outside of this room”, she said, candidly but with a scent of both kindness and sadness.

Albert noticed her sympathy, and was surprised by it. He surmised this woman was in the same situation as they were, but she had already accepted its course. That courage gained Albert’s trust towards her, and his compliance.

Sonia unlocked and opened the door, giving way to a shapeless darkness that heavily contrasted with the previous scenery. “Hold my hand and that of the next person. Do not let go”, said Sonia to Albert. Now forming a chain, the group went in.

The waves announced they were by the seaside. A sweet lyre sounded a pleasing, calming tune. An adolescent boy pursued a similarly adolescent girl, both laughing. The boy caught up to the girl, and both fell onto the soft grass.

They looked at each other, comfortably losing themselves in time. The boy broke the stillness and kissed the girl, letting lose tears of joy. As they delighted in their completeness, the boy slowly opened his eyes, and inevitably saw the group, led by Sonia. His bewildered expression gave way to complete darkness.

A young man painted a portrait of a young, beautiful lady. The lady sat in his front, smiling at him, eating some grapes to battle the heat of the late summer. A little girl ran around the room, playing with what seemed like a translucent piece of cloth. A soothing feminine voice filled the room with incomprehensible lyrics.

The little girl tripped on the veil, and fell headlong onto a glittered cushion on the ground. The lady quickly stood up, worried, at the same time the man turned around to check on the girl. The girl, still disoriented and with glitter all over her face, innocently grinned back at them. The three broke into laughter, as the soothing voice faded.

The young man turned back to his muse, just to find the group of travellers behind her. Darkness engulfed the scene once again.

The photos of two closely resembled women, one in her twenties and the other possibly in her forties, stood on top of a long wooden table. A chorus of harmonious voices tempered the scene.

An adult man embraced an old couple, barely standing on his feet. The faces of the old couple unnaturally manifested impotence, as if they were never expected to assume that stance. The man looked up from their embrace, and with a fading light in his eyes, tried to thank the remaining crowd for being there.

The group of travellers was part of that crowd, this time both in presence and emotion.

Smoke rose in a dusty small room, furnished only by the existing stillness. A haggard, middle-aged man leaned against a stained wall, possibly white in its origin, now shaded into beige. The man’s eyes, jet black, looked up towards the ceiling, as if trying to find a graceful light that would take on the pain of living inside them.

The man unintentionally clenched his fist, to the extent his entire arm started to shake, a revolution against his own submission. He stopped smoking for a moment, surprised at that event, at that sudden luminosity that was inside him all this time.

He gestured a smile at his newfound freedom, but something made him look towards a wretched table, towards the photos of two women, held in severely rotten frames. His smile gradually receded, giving way to an expression of pure guilt. Without changing that expression, he slowly looked up, towards the group of travellers, as light flooded and erased the setting.

Sonia let go of Albert’s hand. “We have made it through”, she announced. The equilibrium transmitted by her words strongly contrasted with the state of the other three travellers, including the even-minded Freida, still shocked by their trip.

That shock was further nourished by the landscape revealing in front of them. Sonia looked at them, raising her arm towards the scenery. “Welcome to the centre of this world. Welcome to The Mirror”, she said.