Saturday 19th November

Mirror, Mirror; morning coffee restored the order of things, and I will try to analyze my past
to find where the snowball began to roll in the wrong direction, before it became an
unstoppable avalanche. My life has been like a cosine curve: fluctuating between cynicism
and romanticism. Starting as a romantic, like every child, by adolescence an inherent distrust
had been rooted in my heart by daddy, and it grew with a vengeful spirit – to include him, and
all of his kind. I soon lead a sisterhood of radical utopists, outcasted feminists, all aiming for
this dorky and prematurely aged librarian-style - glasses worn only as a statement, pinned hair
to hide my inner chaos. We revolted against society´s gender norms with De Beauvoir, dreamt
of genderless utopias with Ursula Le Guin, and later, figured that the Y-chromosome is an
incurable disease with Valerie Solana –all roads naturally leading to their utmost extremes.
We despised the rest of society; one favorite pastime was to watch the silly
cheerleaders from a distance and mockingly make-pretend what they were saying as they
lifted their knees and leaned their head to the chest of muscular jocks. We, the righteous
bookworms, would discuss how to organize utopia - masculinity needed to die out by denying
them access to the womb. No shortcuts were allowed; no wishy-washy dream of conditioning
men through nurture. Problem was; I was a turn-cloak in the making. Arriving at late
adolescence - and surprise! An evil spell struck me and my breasts and hips
became voluptuous. My face, first exaggerating its asymmetrical features, made a
landing back to perfect symmetry - what a disaster! The beast called beauty
stared back at me from mirrors and men alike, and why did I love it despite
knowing better? If I only could have done like Daphne and transform myself into
a tree before Apollo hunts me down…
But alas, I did not! Fast-forward the tape to College; I am now studying political
science in Washington DC, I am nineteen and have passed my cynical peak (or low) and here
comes this beautiful boy with golden locks and blue eyes where girls would drown. The
ideological cause? What ideology?

Let us get Him 1.0 out from our chest once, and for all, he was the image of a savior,
seemingly everything dad was not. He gave me two rebirths in a single day when I lost my
virginity in his psychedelic trip. Oh, I still remember that untranslatable day, smells
intermingling to turn into tastes and colors -a sensory overload culminating in a state where
nothing made sense, and nothing SHOULD make sense! The meadow´s wildflowers burned
through my retina, and there he took my virginity while pretty lies about “my forever ever”
were proclaimed to my left ear. Oh, the lilies…they were shining in ultraviolet! I was
becoming one with nature; I felt myself melting down to earth itself. Birdsongs came from
between my ears, and sugar melted between our lips. All was good and innocent, and I could
see no shadows to this dream. I imagined we were on a journey to explore the secrets of the
Universe together, he told me about Gnosticism, introducing me to his strange church, and I
digested it all, believing I could see the World beyond (I still do) …the imaginable World I
once had mocked, as my father´s loyal pupil.
Four years later, his mask melts away, and I found out about many other girls he
had taken to his secret garden. When confronting him about it he said - and I believe this is
the first real thing he ever told me - that he had meditated himself out of love, just like you
could meditate out of lust, or hatred, or anything! All to detach himself from suffering, it
meant not to be chained by love. I asked him if this was true also of his mother, and he said
(allow me to paraphrase);
 “Of course, without pulling out the root this disease called love, it will grow
back again and again to torture us.”
“Why not meditate yourself out of lust then?”
“I am not a pessimist, you know? I enjoy life, just like you enjoyed the
wildflowers, that day…why would you meditate yourself out of such an overwhelming
enjoyment of the senses?”
“You should be a pessimist, that is; if you had any decency left in your soul! You don’t
simply smell, you pluck flowers and whisper things to make them feel special, then you take
them apart and scatter their petals to the wind!” And I did not cry. I just stared at him coldly,
and his angel´s eyes affectionally looked back with sorrow, maybe a hint of shame. I could not
hate him, oh God! - I just hated the nature of man, the nature of God, nature itself!

And the cosine function was bending towards “below zero territories” once more.
Sunday 20th November

End of November, the rain is falling like frozen needles on my skin. Snow would at least land
softer, would it not? November is the once more the worst month. Am I cursed or am I cured?
No, he is the cause of this mini-depression: he won’t answer my messages, won’t appear
online. For all I know, he could have died. I wish he was dead in my heart. I long for him
physically, sleeping on a t-shirt I stole from him, the smell of cannabis, and cheap cologne,
and, foremost, him. This weekend has been a hiatus, a great nothing. An obsession builds this
way, rules ABC of ´the game´ and no matter how much you rationally know this, you can’t
help but fall for the same old tricks. He is a shadow forever moving at the corner of my eye,
always carrying that horrible grin.

Let us speak of something else than this unhealthy obsession building inside me: the one real
thing that remains true from the false promise that was given by 1.0; Gnosis - it has become
my shield against the horrors of reality. Becoming a religious devotee, and going weekly to an
eclectic congregation consisting of varied species within the homo sapiens, ranging from
daydreaming junkies who had seen some 90s cult-movie too many times, to Ph.D. physicians
whose minds had crashed against the syntax errors found using the scientific method at
quantum level - The Universe was designed to not reveal its deepest mysteries in a laboratory.
What resonated with me, personally, about the ´cult´, was the idea that life had been a
mistake, an evil act by some God that did not love us. Yahweh, the God of the Bible, clearly
cannot be both an omnipotent and a loving creator, when he creates through war and mayhem.
He is the God of matter, and matter is wicked. There is hope, though, and her name is Sophia
- the goddess of wisdom - sending us a secret path out of this cesspool, and that secret is
knowing (aka gnosis). I became attracted by the many female prophets of the early 3rd
century, predecessors to feminism. Marcella became my heroine of sorts, still is. The
Gnostics were divided between the aesthetics, who believed sex to be an extension of the
World of matter, and sought not to procreate, and then there were the ones who saw sex as an
act of liberation, to glimpse the World beyond matter. Most female preachers belonged to the
later. Why is that? Why are spiritual men more prone to be resistant to the divinity of sexual
pleasures?

Maybe this all comes out as expository information to you, but we never spoke of religion, it
was always a no-no territory. Perhaps I am still on the shores of fantasies, decorating a brutal
reality with feeble dreams. The reason I bring this to the table is that I feel – oh, that forbidden
word! - that if the Universe indeed was broken from the get-go, it´s up to us; the debris of this
massive accident, to get together and clean up the gutter, atom for atom. I imagine a Goddess,
evolving at the end of the Universe´s timeline, having cleaned up HIS bloody mess.
Monday, 21th November

The alarm clock causes a tremor in my ears. I hate 6 am. I pick up my Mirror from under my
bed; trying to note a dream before it fades away - but, I have already forgotten it in the
process of writing this very sentence! I can now only recall the horrific sight of a Komodo
Dragon staring at me from the dark, and it derived from my childhood. I will try to remember
the distant past instead, ain´t it strange how we remember something 20 years back in time
clearer than a dream one minute ago?
Anyway, my father and I were in the zoo together, holding hands. I was very
small, maybe six. We watch the great komodos through glass, and I point at the little baby-
dragons that crawled up on the trees with a fearful expression – “it is so their fathers won´t eat
them!” - Father said to my inquiring expression– “but why would they eat them? Don’t they
love their children?” – “love had not been invented yet“– “do they not love? Can they…not?”
I ask, and I put my hands to the glass, the great dragons had its tongue sticking out to lick the
window, eying hungrily at the spot where my small hand was glued – “nothing loved, to begin
with, all that existed was war,” father said. He knelt and kissed my forehead; “But strange as
it may sound; only war could father love!”

Later, after another boring lecture, I get a well-deserved discharge of adrenaline when I find
myself grasping on to him 2.0´s leather-jacket, feel it crunching against my fingers, his
motorbike flying through the highway in a hundred miles an hour. His heart rate just slightly
raised, while mine is hammering against my tongue. When the bike sick-sacks through u-
curves and around hills, I feel my heart diving to the stomach, and then recoiling up to my
throat. He makes small adjustments as a truck´s headlight blends our view, the cold wind
whips my face, and I finally put my yoga-breathing to practical use. He finally stops the bike
in the middle of nowhere. I am just happy to be alive.
“How many men you think can put on that show only for a woman to feel like
you did?” He asks, removing his helmet.
“Surely, it was not a show; the stakes felt way too real…”
He now leads me through a thin gravel trail surrounded by a dark forest. His
steps are steady, never halting to look behind him, while the girl– which, in this occasion,
happened to be me - grows wary about her surroundings. Halloween trees reach out their
naked and crooked limbs at you, the hoot of an owl; something snaps while the shadows play
their gloomy charade, my mind summons teeth-baring predators out of this Rorschach-test
created by nature.
“There are no limits to how real it feels, the stakes, that is, until all the actors lay
dead in the final scene of Hamlet. If that is the case, you will know the writer was not
Shakespeare, but God.“ His voice, lost in the dark beyond, travels to my ears through a cold
breeze, rattling the dead limbs of the trees.
I smile, “You robbed that quote from someone, but I can’t tell from whom, so
you are improving.”
 “Now imagine the eternal princess and her knight, who, in truth, was nothing
but a sanctified brute…she would have no time to find that out, imagine what must she have
felt as he rode off with her to the sunset on his horse…we are but shadows of the real thing.
Your heart won’t ever beat like hers, nor contain as many illusions as hers to adapt to great
danger and suffering.”
“Yeah, and that just accounts for the princess, imagine now the uncountable
harlots, carrying the knight´s forgotten bastards?” I said, and glanced behind me; the trail
back became this dark tunnel, there was no option but to follow his lead. It was all part of his
bag of tricks; our hearts would beat, the adrenaline flushing through our bodies; we could not
go back alone, I admit it was exciting. Have you ever wondered about the strange affinities
between a great lover and a serial killer?
To the sound of waves crashing against cliffs, we suddenly found ourselves
above a steep slope, and beyond: the panorama view of an angry sea. His habitat seemed a
metaphor of himself; the house had been 3D-printed with a crane and hidden between the
reeds, all made of white carbon fiber, intertwined with leaves, vines, and grape clusters.
Before his door, petals of withered flowers lay scattered and discoloured. You may now ask;
how could he live in such a wondrous place for free? He says he bribes the park-keeper with
the best cannabis in town.
I turn my head left and right, not finding him. A shadow looms before my feet,
he yanks my cardigan, drawing me towards him; kissing my neck, pulling me into his budget
snuggle-nest.
Our jeans scattered on the floor, my braw and panties too - I wanted him to see
me naked; be consumed by lust, when I withdraw the object – for was I anything else than
that? - of his desire away from him. He wedges me to his desk, his hands have an iron grip on
my waist, securing me, steadfast, as a mechanic would with a vise - Warmth was building up
to my breasts, he bites my neck, pulls the legs to open up, “NO!” I say; “you won’t have me
today!”
“Get off it; you want this more than I do!”
“You lied! The only true thing about our relationship was that we would be
completely true to each other.”
“Lied?”
I caught your lie on tape; I pressed the play-button on my smartwatch.
“I only have you in biology class,” I pressed it again; I only have you in biology
class,
He withdrew, picked you up from my purse, and lied on his bed to smoke his
´thing´ while reading my diary. He just shook off my act of defiance as if it was nothing. The
dim and musty room silenct, you could only hear the turning of the pages of my diary. He
finally said:
“Ahhh, Solana…I think your act of sadism towards me is starting to make
sense! I did enjoy reading her, she is probably right in her verdict on masculinity, but her
solution is impossible, you simply love giving that pussy, don’t you? Anyway, I do give her
credit for putting a bullet through Warhol´s head after Warhol put a bullet through the heart of
aesthetics.”
“I am not going to enter into a philosophical discussion with you, only so that
you can slither away by dripping your poison in my ears, you snake!”
A long silence residues, once more the sound of your page turning. I always lose
this game of patience, kicking the much despised refrigerator with my heel.
“This scene of manufactured histrionics doesn´t become you. So, your idea of
vengeance is to leave me with blue balls while I read about my predecessor, this yin to my
yang?”
“Two girls!” I crossed my arms, leaning against the refrigerator.
“Wait… Sarah told you? That bitch wanted to sleep with me from the first day,
don’t you remember how she was all over me? While you were silently standing there,
judging me…with that look that wanted to put the all the male ego on trial. She cannot get
over that I chose you over her, with all that fire on her hair…”
“And why should I believe you?”
“Believe me because this cannabis we have been smoking, is a truth serum, a
complex combination of G13, pineapple, and Trinity. Invented by some guy in Minnesota at
the beginning of the century. In truth, it is one of the few variants still forbidden by law…”
I was shocked.
“So, we promise each other always to speak the truth, and then you drug the
truth out of me?”
“Coercion is not bulletproof; my only religion is the chemical process, matter
bending the mind to its will, you can always count on that.” He inhaled, and the glow on the
roll cast a diabolic light on his face, he laughed at my look of disbelief, “you speak here of
this great cosmic struggle between mind and matter. A thing hallucinated in your wild trips
with angel boy. But it was that odd molecule, C20H25N3O, that hit your serotonin receptors
to bend your consciousness, you know?”
Again, I return to the subject at hand; “So, this is why I allowed you to read my
diary; you forced me to become suggestive!”
“Well, you can probably call the FBI, I broke the fifth amendment…”
“When a snake casts out its skin, there is but another snake underneath. Lies
become truths at the cost of larger truths turning into lies; I do not know what to do about
you!”
“Take advantage of my fragile state…I cannot lie right now!”
“Have you slept with other girls in the class?”
He pointed a finger, blew in smoke and said;
“No. I am disappointed by the way; I imagined professor ATCG would be your
priority call…”
“I can take care of that myself, but I have no use of you no more.”
 I crashed out from his house, heard only “I doubt it!”. Suddenly I remembered
that I needed him to get me back to civilization. I also forgot you in his hands. I rushed back
to confront him once more.
“Ok. Get me home, and give me my damn diary!”
“Wait a minute,” his finger wavered while he kept reading you.
“This gnostic bullshit is rather interesting …but you will have to deal with
matter if you want to change the World.”
“Who said…”
He raised one eyebrow. Yes - I wanted to change the World, I was now just
arguing for the sake of arguing.
“And professor ATCG is the path to true change, how do you know?” I asked,
instead.
“He might be a Columbus, or a Newton, for the 21st century. In his hands he got
a device stronger than the nuclear bomb, he claims to have discovered true love, synthesized,
like a virus, or something…”

He gives back my diary, “Shall we make peace?” He pointed to the bed, but I
released a gurgled laughter of disapproval. He then whispered to my ears, “You will
masturbate so hard when you get home…I ought to sleep with Sarah to take revenge against
you…both. But rest easy, I will probably end up calling Clarisa, or Rebecca. I am not a
vengeful spirit.”

Tuesday, 22nd November

First and foremost, let us add one character to my dramatis personae:

Professor ACTG – I have no idea what his purpose is, if not a reality check, for
he certainly would not fit into my dreams, yet, it seems that my self-made heroine´s journey
consists of somehow nestling myself into his, oh so secret, scientific labyrinth.

I observe my prey in class, this shy professor, lecturing about twin studies – identical twins
grown apart in adopted families – how it gave nature a final victory against nurture.
Surprisingly, it is a fascinating lecture. They had forgotten to look for one of the essential
ingredients when determining nature vs. nurture: how different genetic markers activates
throughout a twin´s lives, through the environment. To single out the less obvious variables in
the DNA you had to dig through a billion times a billion variables intermingled to make up a
chaotic whole. Twins, though, differed by only some few markers, making it possible to
single out some few genes and their role in shaping the human psyche, to avoid confusion
about what is the cause to the effect. Some ten years ago, a wealthy 88-year old billionaire
invested all his money to build the most advanced research lab and supercomputers in the
World, back when our University showed promising results on the shortening of telomeres,
and, possibly, the defeat of death itself. The old man died though, and no conclusion was
reached. Now, it seems like all that immense amount of data and artificial brainpower had
permitted scientists to work out the most precise reading of DNA in the World.

Later that day, I stand with my James Dean (cannot keep naming him as an abstraction).
“So, will you do it?” He asked.
I nod. Not for his sake, mind you; if humanity could strengthen its instinct for
love, would it not be a worthy cause to make it happen before big corps get their dirty hands
on the virus? Besides, some part of me just wanted to know if there was any truth to his
games. And…the idea was too exciting to be denied further exploration.

Wednesday 23rd November

Mirror, Mirror…this morning, I prepare myself to become a corruptor of both myself and the
World, it will all be for a good cause, I tell myself. But first, to make sense of who I am
becoming, I need to backwind the tape through memory-lane:
I was six-years-old, swinging my legs on our red sofa, proudly wearing a
princess dress – innocently white. Father dearest, would come to sit with me, his arms
wrapped around me, I felt so safe, so loved. We were watching Snow White; I became
entranced. His cologne in the air, always wearing that azure suit. When the witch said,
“Mirror, mirror…” father said; “My dear girl, you see what they are trying to make you
think?” I shook my head. He said; “that the woman who tries to act out her will on the World
is evil, the stepmother is the one acting out to gain power, while the eternally innocent, docile,
harmless little thing that is the Snow White, she is the one little girls, like you, should idolize
and mimic. Look at Snow White, she got men in shining armor do all her biddings, while the
witch is working her ass off to achieve her goals, and Snow White always falls for her tricks,
she never actually defeats the witch.” My head felt empty. He would sing praises to the witch
every time we watched the movie. He said that any tale, if well told, could make little girls
behave the way the storyteller wants them to act. I nodded my head, committed not to let tales
shape my mind, to impress him. Except for his stories - that goes without saying.
 I remember how I would play the witch´s part in front of our bathroom mirror,
wishing my mother to become old and withered, and that my father would leave her and take
me with him, and we would live happily ever after.

Twenty years later, I stand before a mirror, becoming both the witch and Snow White - they
are hiding within each other inside a matryoshka doll, what do I find at the root? - I wear a
flowery linen dress, applying very little make-up, the face of virginity glares back at me. Men,
far distanced from the game of love, do seem inclined for innocence, or, they feel something
has already been ruined. I had to play that part of the glorious harlot, whore of Babylon,
forever disguised in innocence´s dress. The heroine´s journey is not one where you hold a
sword, but rose-pink lips, that promise a World of delights, but in truth, those lips are painted
with blood (only women can see that!). Scheming had once have been our way through a
cruel world where might makes right, and that instinct remains active today.

Later, that afternoon, I study my prey like a lion hiding in the savanna grass:
The professor sat by himself on a bench by the park, scribbling frenetically on
his notebook, eating a sandwich. Mustard stains on his checked blue-and-white shirt.
In comes the predator, here playing the role of the dumb little girl; the prey is
already sweating at first sight of danger.
“I always wanted to know the secret behind your maze; you are so secretive.”
He just stood with his mouth open so that I could get a good look on the mashed
pork and mustard inside his mouth.
“I…mmm…I…” It is usual for the prey to freeze when the danger becomes
overbearing.
“I´m just playing, silly! I am interested in chemistry,” I whispered, “and not
only the chemistry between man and woman…”
His skin was crawling in. His face turned cherry-red.
“The lecture on twins yesterday was fascinating, do not think I am teasing now,
I genuinely want to know; do twins get attracted to the same kind of people too? Is our
destiny already written in our genes?” I get closer to his seat on the bench.
“Well, everything is written there.” He says.
“I heard you have an IQ of 180; what is it like to be a genius?”
“It does not make me feel comfortable among humans.” He said, eyes pointing
to where I was sitting, the vocals coming out as a wheezing sound as if someone was
strangling him, and he the word ´human´ seemed to imply he considered himself to belong to
a whole different species - maybe he was?
“We could complete each other, I teach you all about humans, and you teach me
about molecules, shall we, later, chitchat in some café, professor? I am drawn, irresistibly so,
to intelligence…” He twisted his body away from me, almost falling from the bench. “
“I don’t like cafés; I just try to avoid crowds.” He mumbles.
“Well, then it will be at your place, it´s settled!” I said, giggling.
“It…well, I don’t know…I like to be discrete…”
“So am I! It will be our secret…”
His hand was shaking when I held it, “I have severe autism, I have difficulty
with these places, where boundaries are not clear…” I gave him my notebook, “Just note it
down; we can create our own boundaries!” I said, and he obediently, at last, scribbled down
his address. It seemed, mostly, a manner to get rid of me. When pushed to a corner, the prey
will often act irrationally, purely on instinct.
“Just…call to me beforehand!”
“Suuuure thing professor…”
Later that night, me and my lover lie in bed, listening to the recording, laughing. He was
infesting me with his malevolent spirit;
“You are playing too hard! He got an IQ of 175, you know?”
“Yeah, noticed how I pushed it to 180?”
“Nah, he is too smart to have his ego tickled, but you did make him extremely
uncomfortable, which was your triumph card.”
“I am not sure what I am looking for here…a love virus? What kind of love are
we talking about??”
“That is the crux of the matter, cramming so much into one word makes us a
little bit stupid. ´Love´ stretches the spectrum from the most selfish and possessive kind of
behavior to utmost selflessness. Just by using the word “green,” we can no longer see the
many shades of green so clearly as tribes that got different words for shades of green. In the
same way, the ancient Greeks were wise to have six different words for love. At one extreme:
Philos, for self-love; and eros, almost as selfish, the love of lust.” he put his hand between my
legs, “at the other end of the spectrum; Agape, manifested through the fool who loves the
entire World, even though the World laughs at him or…crucifies him.”
“How about the love between man and woman, when it reaches those same
stakes, like Christ, two lives intertwined for its sake?”
“What is that? I know no such thing but in fairytales.”
“Your remark wounded me, you know? That I was looking for a Harlequin
romance, why would you underestimate me, underestimate us both, in that way? True
Romance must end in a blood sacrifice, from Isolde and Theodore, eternally bleeding out for
their forbidden medieval passion, evolving into Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights…you
might be hard to tame, but you will never measure up to Heathcliff…you lack that fire to live
for passion´s sake…” I stroked his chin.
“It is called fiction, written by old maids, amplifying their gothic desire to the
heights of art…reality will always be in fantasy´s shadows. Matter is corruptible, which is
why the heroes need to die at the pinnacle of their passion.” He removes my hands.
“I wonder, though, is the professor even able to love in any way?”
“Sure…Philos is too strong to be denied, the ego is forever present, even at
suicide, hence the suicide not that accompanies the act to justify the departure. So be
wary…there is another side to our chubby professor. Last dating lecture with him, we sat on a
bar with two girls, I told him to be dominant, and to silence me whenever I uttered foolish
things, I promised to act submissively and to let him be a glorious professorial bastard
running over me with knowledge. Play to his strengths, you know? To no avail, he was
excusing himself every time he interrupted me, the girls feeling sympathetic towards me. He
then vomited all over one girl´s pretty dress. The night ended with him crying in my arms, in
the toilet, I wiped the vomit from his shirt, while he confessed, he was a virgin. “
“I am starting to feel bad about scheming against this guy…” I said.
 “Well, don't feel sorry!” He went up and put some old glasses on, mimicking
how the professor cried in his arms, and a strange conversation that had taken place in the
toilet;
“´I have…discovered love, true love! And yet, no one will ever love me!´ tears
dropped from his chin while I was holding him as if he was a baby.
´What do you mean you discovered love?´ I said while whipping his vomit, ´The
only love you will discover this way will be the love coming from your hand!´ I said,
releasing a sinister laugh, causing a different man to bubble up within him, it was pure Dr.
Jekyll, and Mr. Hyde shit …he raised himself, wiped his glasses, and put it back on; glancing
at me from the bathroom mirror, ´Do you know I could have them all?´
´Huh?´
´They are biologically conditioned not to like me, but I can mutate their genetics
to have them want whatever I want them to want. But I am, unlike you, an ethical man,
civilized. I have it deeply rooted in my genome to respect rules. Trust me, though; I know
love, and it is not all that special!´
´Lets preend that your premise is true...still, would a blind neuroscientist know
the sensation of color just because he knows how the wavelengths affect the brain? I think
you are speaking out of your ass, professor!´ I said.
´Science relies on the objectivity of the observer in relation to the observed. I
have objectified every possible subjective experience with the help of calculations done at
eight hundred petaflops per second by the University computer. I do not mix in emotions…´-
I always laugh at the arrogance of scientists who remove themselves out of the equation this
way, so I said;
´If that is the case, what the hell have I just observed take place in this toilet? ´
´A glitch in the system, did you know that I created a mouse utopia where
creatures were utterly unable to hurt each other, even if starving to death, what have you ever
done besides all that mating? ´ he asked. He showed a video of his mouse utopia on his phone,
all these mice sharing food and acting very unmouse-like,´ See? What will you ever create?´
and then, he left me there, defeated, lying on a dirty bar toilet’s floor, my shirt wet with his
puke and his tears.”
I stroked his hair, gently patting it down with my fingers, a vulnerable side to
him (at last). But I also became a little bit concerned about my mission. I put my clothes on to
go home.
“By the way, what did you use to ask the mirror before you decided to alternate
between witchcraft and acting like Mother Theresa?”
“Oh, you know what…and it came true, did it not?”
“Hmmm…” he held my face, turned it right and left.
“Mirror…Mirror…” I laughed, “Am I the most beautiful girl you are sleeping
with?”
“No, only the most interesting one.” I playfully slapped him. That wolfish grin
remained.

All this obsession of finding love in the unlikeliest of places, it begs the question: what do I
genuinely seek to find?
 Could it be merely to fulfill desires - my Philos, or worse; Eros? - In the
meantime, I hear third world suffering playing as background noise to my emotional
rollercoaster.

Thursday, 24th November

I stand before his door, the third floor of some decrepit apartment in Chinatown. How fitting
that he would become one with his alienation. I am about to knock, when the old elevator
slides and grunts, I hide in the shadows by some reflex. The professor appears, arms loaded
with late breakfast. He opens his door in a state of disarray and forgets to lock it. I glance at
him entering his house behind a wall, doing a breathing exercise, just waiting for my mind to
work things out. I gently push on the door, see a corridor decorated with a thousand articles
haphazardly pinned to the walls, all concerning the DNA. His apartment is as dim as my
lover´s, but there is a putrid smell, that makes you suspect a corpse might be hiding
somewhere.
“Wohooo, professor, I figured I would come early…” I stop, dumbfounded by
what I find in the kitchen.
My date is having breakfast, hold your breath now…with three dolls - sex
robots! Now I start to shiver inside, his eyes gazing inwards, he won´t look up, maybe hoping
that I would not materialize if not observed. There were large planks spiked over the
windows, only a single ray of light bursting forth into this dark gothic fantasy castle of this
mad savant; this created an oppressive ambiance to the room. One doll, sensing his stress,
walks up to massage his head. I sit down besides…let's Call them Polly and Molly. He won´t
say anything, dares not gulp down the bite that is stuck in time between his teeth. The
massaging doll smiles at me, I force a smile back - it must have looked more synthetic than
the doll´s smile. They were all dressed very lightly, with gigantic breasts threatening to bulge
out. “Made in Japan” must be printed on their bums, for they had that anime look to them; big
puppy eyes, contrasting to the proffessor´s pair of slits, that mirrored no emotions.. My eyes
could not help but keep track of every drop of sweat dripping from his fleshy lips; his eyes
would search out for his dolls´ eyes for validation, not mine. I quivered inside.
“Do not worry, I am free minded” I whimper, eying for escape routes, my mind
fixated on a big knife on the table, the professor slowly stretches out to grab it.
My throat was dry. There are strange affinities between the eternal virgin and
the serial killer too.
 Irrationally I rose, made a run, but, because I was so dizzy, I took a wrong turn
and ended up in a dark corner, the lights dimming. I opened the door to the toilet. Who is prey
now? Who is predator?
I lock myself inside. I am here now. Scribbling, whispering to you for guidance
and looking myself in the mirror. How did I get here? What was I looking for? And most
importantly: How the hell do I get out of this mess?
I hear footsteps, the floor gnawing, I search out for my pepper spray, there is a
knock on the door, and when I am prepared to attack, there stands a sweet-faced doll, asking
for permission to enter.
She stands beside me, glancing at the same mirror, like a sister would, adjusting
her eyeliner, her hollow eyes gazing nowhere.
“He wants to ask you why you pretend so much…he cannot tell this to your
face, but he can see what is fake and what is not…” I look wearily at her, wondering for a
second if “she” could see the irony in her sentence, but no signs thereof.
“And he deems you to be nothing but a bad actress….” the doll says with a
phony smile; thus, she leaves me there, catwalking, with an erotic grace that was not meant
for my eyes to see.

I search for your last page - Mirror, Mirror - where I read father´s handwriting;

“Happy 12th anniversary, my darling girl, and always remember that war is the father of
love…yours forever, dad…”