'Did you hear?, that child is a genius!', 'That child is a prodigy!', 'That child will go far in the future!' empty words that echoed around him, faces that no longer discerned themselves from each other. Unfamiliar people that brought the child to the hospital, their over exaggerated actions, the piercing tone they used. Prosopagnosia. Cognitive disorder of face perception. The shouts of denial that hailed from them, the rough grasps around their shoulders and the constant shaking, then more people came and tore them away. The patient explained to the child that twisted away in horror, their own face was unrecognisable.
Their head hung low as they headed back 'home'. The neglect of the child, as they avoided the stranger in his space and so they passed to eat, fetch a book and sleep. The unfamiliar faces that emerged from the TV. Praised and noticed when succeeding well, attention returned to greet them as their studies progressed. The many tutors that came and left with their high pitch voice echoing the same words over and over. The constant introductions that followed the late nights and dark days.
They strode further away from the child in their shadows and chased after the shadow of what was a happy life filled with love and attention disappearing further into the light. No longer were pitying words spoken. The strangers that had joined to shield the light radiating on him were filled with empty words, greater expectation. The child that ran towards the light became more and more tired, their determination to get somewhere so close yet so far. The small bit of happiness when walking alongside the strangers only for them to turn to leave him in the shadows. The many chains that placed him in a room locked away. 20 years passed and the child had grown beyond his feelings and into an adult, finally obtaining the attention focused on them. The days that the child once thought had come but not once did they feel the happiness or love that came with it. What they had obtained after 20 years of chasing those figures blurred away like their faces. As the child ran towards the strangers that left them, they were unable to see the child crouched in their shadow further and further away as they ran. Past the mirrors that they had stopped to see would have shown them. Small glimpses of the child as they ran in the hall of mirrors towards those strangers. However that child ignored it. 'Happy' and 'contented' with what they thought was what they wanted.
At the top of the ladder they sat down in their room that had been unused as the result of late nights in the study. They brushed away the 20 years of dust that sat on the once shining mirror to stare at the reason for their escape into the fake embrace of strangers. The small glimpse that they saw as they ran passed their reflection in the mirror, windows and stranger's eyes. They finally came to a stop and when they were face to face with their reflection they could see the child crouched in their shadow. The child had covered their ears as if to hide away from the words echoed around him. 'Poor child', 'Don't get close to that misfortunate child'; the fake laughs with intentional actions,'such an intelligent child', 'a genius'. The adult sat motionlessly in the mirror with covered ears, as if still hearing the words echoed to them over and over again. The ladder they perched upon had suddenly disappeared beneath them, they fell through their air and the once hidden things they hadn't noticed were revealed to them.
Somewhere along the lines, the child had given up, the space that felt dissatisfied had long left them. Somewhere along the lines their goals had changed for the enjoyments of life and a different love only to be forced back to the path they had started. Somewhere along the lines a machine had replaced them as they died away in the dark. Tears dried on their face so they could fulfil the overflowing expectations. Somewhere along the lines they had questioned themselves. Somewhere along the lines they had wanted to stop and sleep forever. Somewhere along the lines they had found happiness and tried to grasp it letting it flow through their hands freely like their tears. Somewhere along the lines they had known the intentions of the strangers that had forcibly tied themselves to them. Somewhere along the lines they had given up and broke the multitude of mirrors that haunted him in the corridor of reflections.
As they fell they had tried to grab wildly at the days they had left and the voices that they had once forgotten had echoed louder around them, in their wide empty space, they kept falling. Curling up and covering their ears hiding themselves away. They desperately wished to go back to the days to the brief happiness they felt pursuing a different road and tried harder to fight against their burdening expectations, would it have been different? For a moment they found solace and in the embrace of the people who treated them genuinely, their touch and voices so sweet. However when they reached to take their hands, they had broken through the empty space to see their reflection in the mirror again-no longer seeing the child in the shadows or the beautiful memory.
If they could have seen the calm look on their face as they stared into the mirror at that moment. If they could have seen the indifferent look on their face as they tore the mirror from the loose nail on the wall and shattered it on the floor of the room. If they could have seen the face they made as they lied so casually to strangers, blood that stained their hands.
If they could only have seen their faces.
If only they could remember the emptiness of their own face they made when they had grasped their chest to feel the broken space with emptiness leaking out and radiating from them. If only-If only there was someone for that child in the shadows, maybe- just maybe that child wouldn't have disappeared.
Rain and hail fell from the heavens as if to mourn the life that had been lost. The child that had been erased and forgotten.
If only the empty space had been broken to spill the overflowing love and kindness- maybe what was radiated by that person would not be knives and bullets.
If only what they were walking on was a white carpet to their loved one surrounded by their family. Maybe, they would not be walking on thorns of blood and bodies towards the next victim with an empty, dead look on their face for all the world to see and scorn but themselves.
What if that empty face was filled with multiple expressions?
Would the road have ended differently?
Would they be with a loving family?
Would they be able to be surrounded with people at the end of the road with a clean grave and worn stone stairs towards it?
Maybe they could have reached the beautiful end written in the multitude of fairy tales read to them when they were still able to live freely.
Where they had nothing wrong in their lives.
Where they did not know the evil that lurked in people's hearts.
Where, they thought that the face in the mirror had nothing wrong with it.