A Quiet Sadness

A tale about a man who struggles to do what most men assume to be discouragingly simple; clean a dirty and toxic stain. Or could it be that simple?

He had a keen fixation on the image that stained the mirror. Irredeemable, repulsive, godless, thought the man. No harsher words could be used to attack the stain that darkened the man's bathroom mirror. As this was the source for many callous thoughts imprisoning his mind: smash it to molecules, shoot it with dynamite, gouge it with a Gillette. He had a kind of queer attitude towards an entity about as harmful as a speck of dust, and whence, seemed rather futile, but nothing could dissuade the man from seeing the stain as anything short of a dirt-mound, a repulsive thing torturing his eyes. With each moment his thoughts grew uncontrollably, pressuring the pulse of his heart that now demanded his fullest attention. Off it, said the mirror, free your view of obscenity, you'll thank you for it later. He diligently caressed the bath towel, with hands made to take a life and deliver it the same.

 

Listen, peasant, fission, squealed the mirror as the man scrubbed it with the towel. With each adamant scrub he was beginning to lose sight of the maddening stain, which was steadily dissolving in bulging increments, like a zit after medication. This gave an almost photogenic elation to the man, nothing made him smile more tenderly than to witness a gross little blotch be reduced to invisible bilge. Yet just when he thought he had carefully cleansed it of its misery, something grew a mind, and two arms, and a nerve, as bold as his own. The stain had mystically reappeared full-fleshed within a matter of seconds, on the same contaminated spot. Impossible, mumbled the man, his speech partly paralyzed by fear. He was stunned by all accounts, dropped jaw even, but not once discouraged. The incredible demon of disgust forbade him to show any trace of submission.

 

He ran through every towel he could find, tigerishly wiping down with his battle-torn fingers, but the mischievous stain kept resurfacing, a hundred times, like a determined mosquito. Soon the towels became sleeves, then the sleeves became zippers, and the zippers became craggy fingernails. He stared wide-eyed at the mirror, watching it the whole time; it was sweating like a thief on Judgment Day.

 

The sweat, however, was not exhausted. Indeed, the battle was merely beginning. The man had the strength of two bulls. But the stain had the skin of a rhino. It was the superminiature black hole, asymmetrical as mountains, and totally unscathed by his plebeian efforts. Battle not, this was a war, and both parties were craving insides. The worst was ideal.

 

Naive he, your tissue peons are no match for my Goliath, the stain ruthlessly taunted, bragging of its tenacity. Enraged beyond words, he balled his fist into a stone and pitched a grand slam at the guilty mirror. Clack, reek, splick screamed the shattering glass as it desecrated the bathroom space, scarring the walls and inflaming the floor. An explosion so catastrophic it humbled the man into a cowering fool, completely ashamed of his monstrous overreaction, and most of all, his vassalage to the stain. A quiet sadness consumed him. He tried to fight back unexpected tears, but the pain was draining his spirit defenseless. These were tears of rage that burst into a purging shower, baptizing the blood of his skinless knuckles while cascading down his disarmed hands. He was drenched in a vicious defeat. How unbecoming, thought the man, here is my fall from sobriety, by neither rhyme nor reason. Enough was enough.

 

He pitifully threw himself at the sink to wash the injury, and was taken aback at the sight of a chunk of glass quivering near the faucet. With a final spark it seemed to give a very important message, like a dying soldier would to a journalist. Appreciate, heal, grow, said the glass. He looked at it again for reassurance his eyes weren't deceiving him as they historically did. No, this was no illusion. For the first time, his eyes agreed wholeheartedly with the reflection on the glass, which made no mistake in its spark of insight: appreciate what you have, heal from your malaise; release your former sins and grow into a loftier you, for you. Even if the passion in these words was half-met by infant ears, its profound truth echoed as mightily as a church bell.

 

No gentler words had ever been used to describe the tortured soul who reflected onto the mirror, lingering on his ancient impurities, but was himself too stained internally to see them in a conducive light. It was in this beatitude which finally presented to the man the miracle of a peace of mind. That tender smile unraveled his face once more, from the same place of victory, passion and wonder, only this time, it had reflected a changed man, who was warming his heart from a long and cold slumber. In all his animosity, the man had a remnant of kindness that longed to conquer the self. He wondered where the stain might have fallen to. Of course, he came to realize, it was rescued by the past.

Author's Note

An experimental piece that originally started as a poem, but traveled my stream of consciousness and someway somehow wound up into a semi-lengthy story. Perhaps something inside me impatiently waiting to be voiced, you think? I welcome criticism and/or reviews. This is one of my first short stories. So I am working out the kinks with increasing effort.