I’m a pentagonal piece of glass bound inside a floral, wooden frame. A recorder of changing moods, a silent witness of her daily activities. I’m a part of her dressing table – THE MIRROR. I knew my little mistress’s family even before she was born. I have seen her mother dancing before me, with the newborn baby cuddled in her arms. I have seen my mistress, learning to walk with her father. The teenager took her first steps in the room where I reside. Years passed gradually. She came and went past me with the moving phases of life. I no longer touch a reflection of that little fairy in the white frock. I don’t see an eight year old happily skipping in front of me. I don’t capture the image of two little braids swinging with the rhythm of the times table. I don’t see a pair of rosy pink lips kissing Barbie dolls.

Instead, a seventeen-year-old Aphrodite appears before me nowadays. The ebony black hair dyed into a bright, golden shade. Those killing, dark brown eyes hidden behind thick, black glasses. She has got a terrible addiction towards gold jewelry. The golden tint matches with her pinkish complexion perfectly.

At times when she gets tired of leafing through the recent issue of The Reader’s Digest, she stands in front of her all time companion – ME.

“Mirror, can you tell me what to do now?” She asks.

I know I’m a non living thing; still, I can’t help sighing at her helpless look. As beauty blossomed into her, the world began closing. A dark cloud of depression took over a bright, intelligent girl. She’s not even allowed to stand in the verandah.

“Someone might cast an evil eye on my little darling.” Her grandma keeps on chanting. Going out? NO! Duh! These over- protective elders! She did have loving parents. Yet, she had a silent craving for a sibling. “Life would be much easier with a sister around,” she often told me.

Talking with a mirror might symbolize a mental disorder, but what else can one do? Success is the bridge that connects me to the other side of my beautiful mistress. She swings with pleasure polished all over that fair face. She displays her academic certificates to me with great enthusiasm. She is an extremely attentive student. According to her, the only way out of loneliness was books. She sometimes took refuge to her reading table, when she got tired of the computer or television.

Once in a blue moon, the teenager went shopping with her mother. Beauty overflowed her body then. It seemed as if someone had sprinkled water on a newly budded rose. She never wanted to be a lonely wealthy princess in her palace. The girl loved to listen to the calls of the outside world.

Glittering gold and shiny money could not satisfy my mistress. She wanted a simple life. She wanted to stroll through the shopping malls, picking up little things. Her mother danced to her grandma’s tunes. The mother could do nothing save heaving sighs of sorrow.

As she put a new coat of glass cleaner on me, an invisible tear dropped from my eyes. Dear friend, I’ve been watching you for the past seventeen years. I don’t know how much I could do to make you happy. I wish some day you’ll be able to see a new dawn.

Till then,
YOUR MIRROR.

It was past midnight. In the silence of the night, jackals were howling and announcing about the part of night. The wind was blowing gently outside and murmured in the trees next to the window pane. Night guards were whistling sometimes. Most of the families were asleep. Only I was awaken I was making preparations for my exams.
Suddenly, I caught sight of something and it was like a flash of light and that came from somewhere and I flopped on a chair near my window. I got up from the chair and went out of my room to see what was there. I wasn’t afraid at dead of night as my room was protected with wall. I went out and from a far sight I could see that there was something moving beneath my window. Seemingly the more I neared the more the object kept moving away. I was trying to guess that what it would be as I was not sure. I knelt down and was trying to make a guess of it. Keeping me at a safe distance I examined it and stretched my right hand. Hesitant but gathered some courage and I put hand on it. There was nothing – just a machine-like object half-dug in the earth and covered with grime. Then I took it on my left palm and when I left it on my palm the light went off. Then I came back to my room.
I cleaned it with a two plies of toilet paper. The most surprising thing was that it glowed itself and the light went off automatically without switching on and off. I wondered where did it come from and how. While I was there I looked around for some clues but there was nothing. Hundred of thoughts jammed into my brain – from where can it came and it might be a part of a large mechanical thing. I left it on my table aside and went to sleep.
At the dead of the night I dreamt that whenever I held it, I was just flying over the towns and over the trees or floating in open air and going to wherever I wished to.
It was a bit early in the morning, when a very loud and sharp alarm rang, I leapt up but it wasn’t my alarm clock because last night I forgot to set the alarm. Again I fell asleep and after some time the same alarm went off by itself again but I woke as the whole room was lightened. The rest of the night I didn’t sleep.
After breakfast, I again sat to examine it, turned it upside down, moved right to left, left to right to see how does the machine function. While doing this it seemed someone is talking to me. I looked back but there was none in my own room but was really surprised to discover the machine was talking to me – it was telling me to watch TV but I ignored. I cannibalized the parts of it and examined. I talked to my teacher about it with one of my nuclear physics teacher. He told me to repair it as it was and gave me all instructions. My teacher who worked with NASA told everything that I had discovered a robotic memory of a NASA spacecraft which had been lost long ago from space and then he ushered me towards the stage and requested me to give speech.
Next day an unknown letter came to me. In this span of time I might have discovered something that I did not know. At the same time I got two phone calls—one from NASA and another from my university and I was invited there to deliver a lecture on the robotic memory. I went to my university and my teacher was there standing with a bouquet at the gate and the university vice chancellor along with most of the teachers gave me a standing ovation. Just delivering the speech I got down from dais but felt that I have gone down in history of the North Atlantic Space Administration. My name will be remembered by NASA scientists as long as it exists.