Reflector.

I am a simple man.

I have very few needs, they are; food, clothes and job. I love to be alone. I don't like to be in a crowded place, feel very suffocated. Loneliness bug has never bitten me. I have never understood the need for companionship. Schools and colleges just swept by; very much immersed in studies. Not that I was not mocked in the school and college. My peer's tormented me, with names like loony, weird and spooky.

I never understood why they felt the need to speak like this. I never ever troubled them. On the contrary I steered clear from all of them. Nor was I ever attracted to girls. I never felt the need to get married and then have children.

Ain't, I a simpleton?

I can go on with my life just fine and with no difficulty. I need to interact with few people out of compulsion. You know people at work place, neighbors in the building, cashier at supermarket, to name a few. I absolutely hate it.

My house has a living room well kept, can't say well furnished. I don't like things clustering my movement. Then a bedroom, which has a bed and a cupboard. Oh I forgot, I hate mirrors. There are no mirrors in my house. A small dining room…..Dining room with one chair, obviously I don't entertain. A small kitchen kept spic-span. I can't stand dust.

I hate shaking hands with people as I feel the germs may transmit and hence I wash off my hands as soon as possible after a handshake.

--------------------------------------------------

I am in front of a mirror. Staring at my face. I see a shadow behind me. A big silhouette, very scary. Who could be standing there? What does he or it want? It's looming large over me. I feel suppressed, suffocated. "Help me pleaseeeeeeee........."

I wake up with sweat tingling down my spine. My sweat drenches my pillow and mattresses. My heartbeat is racing. My hands shake as I stretch to pick up the glass of water on the side table. I hate to drink water too; it sometimes reflects things to me. What a fool am I? I don't have a mirror in the house. It couldn't be anything, other than a dream.

I walked to the window and looked upward towards the sky, to check on the time, because I don't have a watch, it too has a glass covering, you see. Looking up at the dark sky I knew it was just 4:30 a.m. I tried going back to sleep again.

--------------------------------------------------

I am on way to my office. I walk to my office. Looking down, with my head bent in my neck, I walk straight not looking anywhere. I strode intentionally towards my destination, without looking left or right.

Suddenly there was some commotion; still I kept my head shoved inside my neck. I don't need complications. But this lady collided with me and by the impact of the collision made me look up. She had dark glasses on. I saw myself reflected on it.

Somebody screamed. Possibly they felt the same terror I felt when I saw myself reflected in the mirror. The mirror shows the dark side of the man; which is horrible and maybe so true that I always feel that dark figure will leap out of the mirror/reflector and lunge at me, swallow me, plunge me in its dark vacuum never to see the daylight again. The scream went on and on.

I couldn't force any sound from my vocal chord. I found a lump in my throat. Such was my anguish, which cannot be described. The lady moved back, retreating as if somebody was about to attack her. A finger pointed at me. People gathered around her, whispering about me most certainly. The cheek of that lady, frightening me and then fibbing to the crowd about me. A man approached me and asked if I was all right. I don't want to speak to anybody.

He shook me," Please why are you screaming?"

Stupid man. Why is he asking me?

"Hello"'..."Hello". "Please are you in pain?" he went on, "Why are you shrieking?"
--------------------------------------------------

The Spartan room is white with green curtain on the high raised window, heavily barred. A cot with a single mattress and there seems no occupant in the room at a casual glance. Probably if observed at pinpoint range at the corner of the room, a human form is noticeable doubled up or in fetus form as in a womb.

As the doctor enters the austere room, he notices the man at the corner. The ward boy locks and stands at the door, waiting for the doctor to leave.

He calls out to the man. There is no response, a perpetual stillness in the cell. He tries once again, with no luck. He walks to the man who is bent over himself and shakes the man ever so gently. A slight stirring of the form betrays its existence.

Gradually he turns, with his head bowed in his neck. Looking down at the cell floor.

"How are you feeling?" Questioned the doctor.

No response escapes at all!

The still form can hear the doctor and he wonders, "Why are these people troubling me? Why can't they leave me alone?" Altleast this place is devoid of mirror and glass.

The doctor stretches his hand and puts his finger under that man's chin and raises his head. Two bleak eyes look at him and then suddenly the patient’s expression changes, with absolute terror reflected in his eyes.

Oh my god, the doctor has a spectacle perched on his nose. I can see my reflection on them! They are coming for me. Save me please.......

-----------------------------------------------

The patient's mouth forms in rotund shape with a long shriek, startling the otherwise placid hospital.


The ward boy and the nurse with a tray in hand, rushed in to aid the doctor. The nurse prepares the syringe and hands it to the doctor.

--------------------------------------------------

In the doctor's common room, the doctor in attendance for the new patient was deep in his thought and absently wiping his glasses. He kept wondering about the alarm that mirrored in his patient's eyes. What triggered such an outcry from the patient?

He shook himself out of his reverie and put his glasses on to study the case paper of the shrieking man.

The End.