In his younger days, he fancied himself a wordsmith. A champion. A person who could always hold his own in any conversation, on most any topic, in most any setting. Often he would motivate and prep himself for the challenges of the day by telling himself that he must be precise, sharp, and always focused. Nothing can get by me, he would say. And he believed that he must win every friendly spar or joust presented before him.
Affable, he presented small in stature but potent in presence. Learned and something of a savant when it comes to his work, he answered to any number of names, nicknames, and titles he had rightfully earned. With some, he was guarded and proper. Others saw a more humble humility, still layered in the protections of pride and ego. Seldom did he see himself as alone.
As he grew older, that vulnerability would equate, in his mind, to weakness. Emotions were often frequently categorized as coming from those who needed a “tougher skin” or a sense of “real world understanding.” Though he in no way believed he preyed on those qualities for personal gain, he would constantly be amazed when anger or tears were dropped at his feet. These annoyances, these battles, as he saw them, had to result in a win.
Nothing can get by me. Nothing.
One day, as he looked around and saw heads turned and eyes diverted, he couldn’t help but wonder…Has it always been like this? He struggled to remember, as the emotional vulnerability he detested in others manifested within himself.
Friends had always drifted-in, drifted-out. Connections were made, kindness exchanged, only to have those moments vanish as quickly as they arrived. For awhile, he considered there might be a flaw in his construction - a design gaffe so repellent that, when it surfaced, it drove everyone away.
He would eventually come to the conclusion, after thorough investigation and analysis, that his construction was sound and free of problems. The flaws simply never showed themselves anywhere that he could see. His dedication to always being precise, sharp, and focused, had created an individual impervious to mistake or frailty.
Through the years, as he grew into his skin and filled out suits that his increasingly successful career afforded him, his voice would become a thunderous echo in the places where he had once expected and desired to be heard. Away from work, his discussions found an audience of voiceless spectres, borne from a once vivid and expansive imagination. With each conversation, the spectres said less, their voices eventually fading away like all the rest.
But he always had the mirror. There was always someone there. Always looking back. Always brandishing that smile. Always familiar. Always someone he could count on.
Being alone soon become a formless existence, no longer bound by definition or meaning. Each day, he would strive to be perfect. No mistakes. Be a good listener. Be a strong advocate for those you believe need it. Hold your own with anyone about anything.
He eventually began to wonder about his place in the world. He always initiated. He always continued. He also always stayed too long. And others seldom had the desire to finish whatever it was he had started.
Recently, hints of familiar faces had started falling into memory and old conversations locked themselves away. Being perfect had now become an all-consuming obsession. Clothes meticulously laid out and ironed once, then twice. And then again in the morning. Dishes scrubbed, rinsed, scrubbed again, and washed. Showers occur in the morning and night, and perhaps mid-day on weekends. Those imagined voices he used to summon for frequent conversations had turned quiet and observational, watching for the slightest hint of imperfection that would consume his every waking moment.
The mirror never failed him.
“Hello!” he says into it on one particular morning. Puzzled, he failed to notice that trusted and familiar smile welcoming him. “Hello?!” he says again. The smile never materializes. His perfect mistake-free world had sprung a flaw. The one thing he had grown to rely on is different suddenly and hard to recognize; absent any characteristics he could comprehend.
He glitches. Stammers. Pauses.
“Are you in there?!” he shouts in a half-joking, half-desperate tone. An empty, deadened stare looks back at him. Agitated, he turns around. He looks at the makeshift perfection all around him. The wordsmith is suddenly speechless. Spinning back around he gasps, staring deeply into the soul of something familiar, yet unrecognizable looking back at him.
Where is that confidence? That stature? That presence? What happened to the perfect being he spent a lifetime creating?
The longer and more intently he stares, the more he becomes distressed, lost and shaken. His eyes water, his throat tightens. Reflected back at him is a stoic, immovable, expressionless object. He searches every corner, every inch of what is presented before him.
There must be something to fix. Something to make this right.
But he can’t find an imperfection. There are no mistakes, except the absence of a smile. The absence of a presence. The absence of the wordsmith. The absence of the champion.
What he is staring at, he realizes, is something he never truly paid attention to; the manifestation of a monster who made everyone leave, everyone step aside or turn around, and eventually avoid anything he had to offer. Through the vanity and veneer of smiles, stories, laughter, and abject happiness, he was blind to what was truly staring back at him, morning by morning and smile by smile.
This reality settled around him the longer he gazed into the emptiness of what presented itself before him. There was nothing he could fix.
Time quickly stopped. His chest heavy. Nothing made sense. No one could hear his whimpering, simpering cries, which fought hard to become a full-throated release of pain and anguish.
He swallowed hard. Closed his eyes and dropped to his knees. He stuttered out a final plea.
Please talk to me.
As silence engulfed the room, thousands of memories rushed by. Thousands of moments of what might have been, showing themselves in fleeting stabs of sound and color. And then, those moments broke into countless fragments and tiny little pieces. His world, at once, felt infinite and empty.
As he waited, there would be no response. There would be no answer. The mirror, and all it contained, now and forever broken.