The Broken Mirror

The Wisdom of Abner Day Series - II

At some point … in a person's reckoning … we come to the unthinkable … and thereafter … we realize that … our lives … changed at that point. Beyond that … we were never the same again. Abner ran into a grizzly … in the forest … and it chased him all the way home. By the time … he got the old Winchester … off the wall … it had wondered off. But the man was a wreck.

His hands trembled and he shook visibly. He looked at it … and felt a quiet satisfaction. He had been afraid for so long … it was good to know that he was. But in his haste and anxiety … to get the gun … he had knocked the mirror of the wall. It lay in pieces on the floor. He removed it … and took an aluminum foil … that he positioned near the window. It sort of provided a vague … resemblance of what he looked like.

But in the following days … the loss of the mirror was producing an effect. It diminished the intensity … of his gaze … and he found himself peering to focus his sight. And then … the visions began. He saw in a gaze … a house at the foot … of a hill … of medium height. He thought at first … that it was him. His cabin also … lay at the foot of a hill … in Southern Alaska. But there was something unusual … about the vision. The trees on the hill were a mix of brown and green. His hill … was quite bare … without trees.

The bear … he figured was the old … protagonist in the forest always. With a reputation for being big … strong … and a little given to sleep … the bear represented … the sleepless dream in man. But the custom that has come to bias … in human affairs … is the will to remove the threat by force. Man … he figured had to engage … the lethargy of the bear … to get it to respond to the … physical orientation of life on earth … away from the dreams.

However … the responses of the sleepless dream … came to be categorized as ' the goat ' … in the annals of human thought. Simply put … man at some point or other … creates an initiative to accept what he sees … and turns them into … a sub-conscious understanding of the world. At other times … he is himself … creating the initiative to add to the physical phenomenon of events … that is drawn into the acceptances … by the sleepless dream. If man is ' goat '(*1) … so is the universe.

In undertaking such an activity of mix … in our responses … the bards of yore … placed a beast … at the very center of the human experience … that came to resemble … the dragon … the griffin … ape … goat … or the human female as the great mother. Abner paused in his thoughts … and looked at the hill. It appeared bigger than life … portending to have seen the seasons of man flow by. A short distance away … the reflection of the hill … shimmered on the surface of the lake. ' You reap what you sow ' … Abner growled.

Two days later … as he peered into the tin foil to trim his beard … he thought he felt a sense of someone … looking at him … from its reflection. It stunned him … and in combination with … the diminished intensity of his gaze … the sleepless dreams re-activated the imaginative sense … that he had held down for sometime. Sitting on the verandah … he figured perhaps he had been too harsh … and prepared himself … to allow some informed sense of cues as … his volition to the sense of wander … in his passions.

In the following days … his visions rose to tremendous heights … and scaled the peaks of possibilities. But it also brought with it … his irascible sense of ' knowing already ' … before he can even begin to study the visions … and understand it. It began for him … a new phase of confusion … that left him dazed for days … and re-introduced to his mind … the disagreements … his chaotic natures … and the many reasons … that took him away from the social city … he had previously subscribed to.

' Its the mangy monkeys (*2 )' … he yelled … ' dogs (*3 ) ' … ' worst than senseless beasts!(*4 ) '

He dashed out of the house … one day … gun in hand … determined that he was going to track down the bear and kill it. It had stirred his fears … and produced a villainy he wasn't clear about. It imprisoned him … and tortured his helplessness … with taunts … as if he was supposed to know better … as if he had claimed that he was clever. It sought to … dash his beliefs … that he had earned … the mastery and self-control … he was starting to feel.

He stood outside the house for a while … and thought about what he wanted to do. The will to take a life … declares categorically … the aim and determination … to succeed in a chosen way of life. For such is the nature of choices. We are responsible for it. And its only us … who can change that choice … once made. His hand gripped on the gun. It was in his hands. But his eye caught the gravel … that he had laid in front of the cabin. He took the sack … picked up the gravel … and brought it back to the river. Life is perhaps lived in many forms … he thought.

' An achievement … no matter how profound … is not the life complete ' … the words rolled out of his tongue … as he sat on the verandah … smoking his tobacco. It appeared to him … that we may have cultivated such attachment … to individual bouts of achievement … not realizing that … its the many individual achievements … that add up to a complete life. He rose … and retrieved a small piece of the mirror from the dump … and put it back on the wall. It conveyed a small part of his face … and he had to manoeuvre a little … to see all.

Abner's Collection of Useful Words :

(*1) goat … (pron'/ goad) (accoustic relation … god ) Four-legged furry creature with horns. Myth … mindless hedonistic followers of popular views/cults … and when denied … transform to the devil or lucifer. Abner's version … Any of the two-legged creatures that lives with a wife. Slang … an unnamed and totally unfamiliar fear that causes a person to panic … e.g. you almost raised my goat.

(*2) monkeys ...( pron' / mung … kiss ) hairy animals resembling the human form who live in family groups. Myth … the sensation of open nudity … yet experienced as covered … displayed as physical form in a mix of subtle passions in speech. Science ...considered an evolutionary phase in man … now diminished in human experience … by social practices, laws and self knowledge. Slang … the quality of being disorderly, inquisitive and obsessive … in behavior.

(*3 ) dogs … ( pron' /dawks) ( observation … reverse spelling of god ) Four-legged furry animal … often kept as pets myth … (Gk) attacked and killed their owner, Acteon, in mistaking him for deer … as he evolved from willful to gentle.Note … Is the animal engaged to refer to the brightest star in the universe ' Sirius �" the dog star.'

(*4) beasts … ( pron' /beest ) (orig... medieval iconography ) term used to describe all manner of animals in the wild … excludes pets. Myth … engaged in legends to depict the changing forms of man … that are as yet undecided as to identity … and convey unthoughtfulness in word and action. Slang … an unfeeling person … who is charged with self interest … and self serving attitudes.

Reviews

[AirelinLove17]

The story would flow better without the ... After every sentence. Also, don't say "the man is a wreck" show it through how he looks and his actions.