Mirrors Can Remember

UNPUBLISHED FIRST DRAFT

Camille Estanislao
Do you know what mirrors are capable of?
Mirrors can remember.
Once, in Narcissuss wood, I met a wandering nymph who nursed a great admiration for the
handsome, drowned youth. She wore narcissus flowers in her hair; indeed, she was very
beautiful. And she insisted that her looks were nothing compared to Narcissuss.
"But, how do you know?" I asked her. "Narcissus was before your time."
"Oh, but the lake remembers his face," she told me. "His face sometimes glimmers out of it, an
image of perfectionperhaps to remind me of my own vanity."
Years later I walked into an old ballet studio that used to be a nightclub, that used to be a
ballroom dance studio, that used to be a tea shop, that used to be a caf for old book lovers.
The mirrors had always been there, old as old can be.
Looking closely, its just possible to discern stockinged legs flashing up and down, in the mirrors
memories. If you look long enough, you might see bookshelves behind you, too. But I didnt
stay that long.
Going back to Narcissuss wood, I told my friend the nymph that there wasnt much use in
investigating mirrors memories anyway. And wasnt a reflection a mere bounce-back of light
under the right conditions?
"Well, yes," she replied, "but you cant deny that sometimes, reflections are what make things
exist. A bounce-back of light. How much light do you have in you, that a mirror will not forget
your face in a hurry?"
I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is rather enjoyable to sit at the bank of Narcissuss lake,
legs wallowing in the water and surrounded by perfect white flowers.
The nymph pointed at the moon.
"The moon is a mirror of the sun," she declared magnificently, "and the lake is a mirror of the
moon, tonight."
A pair of eyes glimmered from out the ripples I was making with my feet. Such beautiful, gray
eyes
"As the ocean is mirror to the sky, and such temperamental things they are!"
The lake itself is vain, I thought.

"And his eyes," the nymph smiled at where the gray glimmer had been, "are a reflection of his
spirit, and they are reflected in the lake. You will not gain much from ithe was quite as shallow
as the lake is deep, apparently."
But after that last visit to Narcissuss wood, I could no longer see deep into mirrors. Something
in those gray and coldly beautiful eyes had taken that away from me.
I could only see my own reflection and wonder what else the mirror remembers. Meanwhile, I
have taken to staring into the greatest mirrorsthe oceansdepths, hoping that the depth
would crack away the vain shallowness of Narcissuss eyes. And anyway, I might meet a naiad,
and who knows what the mermaids will be able to show me.