CHAPTER THIRD

.. I have a conversation with Celâl after I give him a name...

 

A CONSERVATION OF MY MIRROR

# Belong 
Where do I belong? Celâl keeps asking me, just as he has been asking since those days I've looked at a mirror taking to a face I find stranger every time..a face I can't bring myself to love, for it seems too strange, for I have to be more... There has to be more to me than this. More to me than these people think. Much more that I haven't showed them. The face has become a bit familiar since then, even lovable perhaps, but only by me because hey! This is me. But there has always been that promise- the promise of being much more-that has kept me going. Every now and then I have to remind myself of that promise. Normal just wouldn't do. True happiness. To die knowing that I may be remembered by more than close family and friends. This is my debt. I owe it to the greater man ( boy?) in me- the boy who was much more- for all the misery I have dragged him through. This misery might look like nothing to you, but he deserves more. All he has done so far is look up from a cage, tortured by the sight and the sounds of the clear sky above. This is where he belongs. He belongs where I can never hope to reach. Only he can. Only he must. I owe this to the boy, to free him from myself. That is what I owe to Celâl Bey. So that when he looks at this face again, he can smile with gratitude and I can smile with pride. That is what I owe the artist- the one I have named Celâl Bey- to take him where he belongs.