A Mirror's View

Standing there, facing me, was the worst part of my master’s daily ritual. But as always he was there surveying himself from top to bottom, socked in self-abhorrence.

I peered into his eyes to see what he sees.

Saggy skin hanging over every facial curve; half-closed haggard peepers trying to fall inside the skull as soon as the lid shuts; tanned skin with a few cuts here and there; parched lips having no color to allude the presence of life and a wrinkly endless forehead completed his old pallor. His despicably large and rough hands maneuvering a pretty little tie pronounced a vehement contrast. His rounded shoulders, indolent head, and tenuous frame concluded him as a loathsome pantaloon.

I was absorbed in my work of mirroring the master’s view when mistress entered the room with genuine panache. She beheld him in the admiration which made me shift my gaze to those content eyes of hers.

In her eyes, I saw a different man. His loose cheeks gave a childish innocence to his punim and deep-seated eyeballs reflected a deep ocean of knowledge within. His tawny skin, like that of a bronze statuette, was occasionally decorated with scars of abominable experiences which he took onto himself with great patience. His mouth resembled that of a pious sage with lips dried owing to the long sermons of wisdom. The landscape of his forehead was embellished by beautiful mountains and valleys born from all the ups and downs he went through. His sensible build, contradictory to the outrageous masculinity of many, gave him a gentle look of a lovable man.

                               

“ Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

 “Love is the fairest of them all; love is the fairest of them all”