A familiar face; calm and beautiful. The room is practically
dark but her facial features are unmistakably clear and visible. Her dark hair
is in perfect contrast with her pale white skin. It is like she is being
illuminated from within.
“Why am I looking at this girl at the middle of the night?
Who is she and how did I get here?” , she asked herself. There was urgency in
her thoughts but somehow she was perplexed by the lovely face and all her
questions vanished bar one – Who is this girl and why is she so familiar?
She knew she had seen her before. The familiarity in her
face was so profound and it felt like she knew the girl’s name; it was in her
mind but all jumbled up. She realized again that she was staring at this girl,
her calmness was a trance. She closed her eyes and thought hard to remember how
she got there.
She had been at work all day. It had been a tiring day.
Every day at the work is tiring, but today was extreme. She had been transferred
to the new department a few days earlier and had been learning the way around.
Her colleagues had told that this was the job with most work and a difficult
boss to please. But she knew she would never back down from a challenge. It was
not in her nature. Besides, she had taken this job to do something good and the
new work would help her realize her dream.
DREAM! She thought. Had she slept at work and was now
dreaming? It couldn’t be. She remembered quite well that after pulling a late
shift and finishing her assigned work, she had walked home tired. Her home was
about a twenty minute walk from her work place. She enjoyed walking but today
she was feeling tired and disappointed.
Her disappointment was caused due to the fact that her boss
had neglected her efforts at work. She had done her job well and was hoping for
praise but the shrewd man had pointed out a minor mistake, and had scolded her,
which was later found to be someone else’s mistake.
Walking was always a relief to her. She thought about things
that were bugging her or that needed attention while she walked and she
believed that she made good decisions during her walks. Walking home today, she
wondered if she had taken the right decision to choose the new role at work.
Was it what she really wanted? Were there other more fruitful ways to get her
goals?
This sudden questioning of her decisions about work also
opened the doors for all other decisions she had made before. She wondered why
she had stopped talking to her closest friend from her childhood. They were
always close but after both of them took different majors at college, they had
slowly become further from each other. She asked herself if she had studied
arts like she always wanted to, would things be different. Would she be
happier? Her parents persuaded her to take the subject she studied, but she
never thought it was because of their constant pressure that she was not happy
now. She loved her family. She did feel guilty that she never tried to convince
them. She also wondered about her love life. She knew that she had always had a
lot of admirers. She noticed them but she was more focused on more important
things in life. In her mind, she simulated scenarios about how her life would
have been different now if she had not rejected some of her admirers. Better
yet, how good life would be if she had not let in people in her life that had
broken her heart?
But that was not how she got here. She had reached home with
all those thoughts in her mind. It was already pretty dark and she was too
tired. Once inside, she had aimlessly tried to smile at her family members welcomed
her home but was too tired to make it look convincing. Her mother had noticed
and asked her if everything was okay. She always could share things with her
mother but today, she was too drained for a long conversation. She had told
that she was just tired, hungry and wanted to sleep early. She had gone into
the kitchen, not bothering to freshen up, looked around for what was cooked,
made a plate and devoured it hungrily.
After dinner, she got ready for bed. She had an elaborate
ritual before bed but she always did it even though she was too tired. She had
planned to sleep but after freshening up, she felt like reading for a while.
She took her Kindle from her night stand, jumped into her bed and started to
read. She was reading this popular book about the life of a boy and how the
people around him shaped his life as he grew up.
She remembered reading it for a long time. While reading,
she imagined what the author was trying to portray, the story, the emotions and
small details. The author had told a tale through a perspective of an orphan boy
about life. How everyone and everything has a role to play on how he turn out
to be. All the good things in his life shaped the boy to be kind, generous and lovable
whereas all the bad experiences taught him to become more persistent, hopeful
and stronger. All in all, the author
wanted to show that life is made up of joys and sorrows and these experiences
in life make a person better.
And that’s when it came to her. She remembered where she is and who is the beautiful girl sleeping peacefully. She slowly opened her eyes
and turned. She remembered that there was a mirror on the wall. She looked at
it and she could she the horror in the reflection of her own face. Terrified,
she gathered that she was in her own room and the familiar girl sleeping in her
bed was HERSELF…
