Reflection Part 1.

I sigh, sliding my stockinged toes down the basement stairs as slowly as possible. By night I wouldn't even be caught dead in that basement with all its shadows and creepy curtains; but by day, when a dust rag is your weapon, the basement is merely a disagreeable chore with its thousands of knick-knacks and shelves and tables and instruments and ledges and vases and a dozen or so nameless items of no use whatsoever. My grandmother is like a pack-rat, collecting bits and pieces of nothing and storing them in that basement to gather dust. Dust which I have the pleasure of....well, dusting.

I reach the bottom step, my last excuse gone. Oh joy. Looking up, shimmers of shock run through my veins. There is a door I can't remember seeing before peeking out behind a red curtain. It is large and white, looking more like something out of a fairytale than from my grandmother's basement. On the door a mirror. And in the mirror a face. Shock again. The face startles me.

Mine of course, but is it?

I walk closer, but slowly, as if in a sudden daze. The world upstairs seems far-removed and unreal, and every detail of my life before this moment fades into insignificance.

I pull aside the old curtain, and light bursts forth from the door, its whiteness radiating like a golden sun. The face in the mirror is smiling gently, and I put a hand to my mouth.  My lips are serious, but how could that be?

The mirror girl still smiles. Other differences are there too. Her face is perfect, the hair falling softly, lips scarlet red, and eyes so brilliantly blue that their beauty breaks my heart.

The mirror girl is not me. But she is me. Our eyes know eachother.

She reaches out her hand to touch the surface of the mirror, beckoning me. I glance behind, the foot of the basement stairs only vaguely visible through the shafts of light filling my eyes.

Her hand calls to mine, and I extend my own hesitantly. Through the rays that float about us, I see her eyes calling me still, their blue a bath of tranquility and trust.

Our fingers touch, and the door of light opens.

Into Reflection I fall.