"They should stop overdoing it like this. I mean really, this is finally getting completely out of hand! Just look around and you will see what I mean..."I looked around with a half-serious gesture and then sighed. This same discussion had been repeated at least a hundred times in the six months. But this was my job, to get him fixed, put the pieces back together, get him back on the street where he belonged. Hopefully retaining my sanity in the process and not sacrificing too much of my own individuality.
"Take yesterday afternoon for example. Walk past the tree and there one is. Open the door and there is another one. Pay for the groceries and it is in the change. Look at those birds, of course. Now even home is not safe any more. Mirrors all over the place..."I just let this person continue.
"Messages from God, they really do speak to me. But not through some masterful spiritual transformation, no. They have to do it through these crazy contraptions. Jeez..." My patience had been used up long ago, and I had learned that listening was often enough to ease the struggle. Repeat and then nod, pull it out of him and let him see it in the mirror, one of the mirrors he always referred to. Hopefully.
"Just look at this. Another one of those microscopic video cameras..." I followed his finger which was pointing at a distant spider dangling from an invisible thread up in the corner of the ceiling. Bouncing up and down.
"Very sophisticated, truly amazing! They go to such extremes only to displease me. For some fabricated sins that I have never committed, never ever..." Once in awhile he would get into the variegated concepts of so-called committed sins and then get distracted. Time for atonement, it is never too late.
"Why is that bird looking at me that way? I cannot stand it..." No bird for miles around, not in this God forsaken territory, the mind of mirrors. Not even the almighty thunder-birds, no other birds here, no way.
"Come over here and look in my mouth..." I slid my chair over to his right side and gazed into the side of his mouth which he had pried open with his thumb and forefinger. Just puffed up gums and crooked yellowish teeth. There was a speck or a pinpoint or something curious.
"Now put your ear close by and tell me what you hear..." I did as he asked, waited thirty seconds and heard nothing. Just as I had expected, already had seen in the mirrors.
"No like this..." And then he motioned a twisting flip of his right hand as if he were turning up the volume of some invisible knob in the air. That is when I heard it, the sound, and it was a human voice coming from very far away. He noticed that I had noticed and then came the grin of understanding. Both of us at the same time.
"Now didn't I tell you before? You got to believe the meek, you must. I am here for a reason..." It was a voice, almost singing, and there was some musical beat causing a very gentle throb as if echoing this person's very heartbeat. A twang of a guitar string. Some voiceless throbbing that was meant to be understood somehow, Sirens of the sea.
"The heart will echo the mind and we will understand it someday." Then the voice stopped and the music died away. I wrote down what he had said because I thought it very appropriate for the new day ahead of me. Hitting a emotional chord within me, twang.
"Same time tomorrow?" I nodded and slid my chair back to its original spot in the bare room. The hour was over with and it was time for me to depart. As I opened the door for my daily exit, I saw a metallic glint from the corner of my eye. Right over there where the spider was hanging. Better go now.
Where was my mirror?
