Under siege, marked a girl, surrounded by mirrors. She sat inside the dimly lit room and stared at the mirrors. As the candle steadily melted, she sat in the corner, staring at the mirrors. Through the sound of the night and the passing of the train, she remained on the floor, staring at each mirror. She could hear the sound of her childhood, beckoning from outside the wall; grasshoppers and catfights, she missed the loud hisses that lulled her to sleep. She let her eyes frolic amongst the reflecting walls. She let her mind slip into a new world. She let her thoughts dangle and loiter inside this world. Dripping like wax, the concepts ran through her brain; the girl pondered about the decisions that she would someday have to face. She let her head float, as it tried to comprehend the existence of her place on earth. She took out some paper and watched her fingers move swiftly among the lines of the piece as she wrote down, “This world…” She felt strange being alone with no one to look at but herself. Drawn to her reflection, she swore to keeping starving her ego. Watching her hand move in time with her words, her nails glimmered in the flickering light as she wrote down, “ is about floating between what’s real and what’s absurd.” She looked up from her paper into the mirror. She needed to look herself dead in the eyes, so that her thoughts could catch up with the passing time. Staring deep into her pupils, her focus darted between the left and right. “Why do I have two eyes?” she started writing beneath line one of the paper. “What’s the point of two eyes, when they are always looking at the same thing? What’s the reason for my lashes, when they are something I cannot see?” She paused for a moment and looked back to her reflection. She saw another girl there, but looked down and only saw legs and arms and toes and feet. Still rising into this question filled realm, she frantically scribbles down, “I cannot see the real me, just this reflection staring at me here.” It’s on the tip of her tongue as she tries to translate the dilemmas that occupy her head. The echo between each canal of the empty cavity of her state of mind seemed to scream, telling her to stop thinking. She crotches in distress and wonders about the beyond. She lets her sight wander down the flesh of her arm. Nourishing her soul, she let’s her sight walk down to her fingers, for they are clenched in a fist. She allows her confusion to come out and play. She grabs her pencil and writes hastily, “Why were we made this way? Why do I have ten fingers, and why do I have ten toes? What is the reason behind bone structure, and why are these the words that I have chosen? Why does my face have to stay plastered to my head? What is the difference between life on earth and life being dead? Are the cells filling my cavities just lies I need to hear? Do they somehow help me understand my existence? What is behind my face? Is it a brain with an existing conscious? Why do I speak and how is it possible to form words with my mouth? How do I put together letters so that sentences come out?” She begins to chase after those moments when she actually knew what it meant to be alive. As she looks around the room and glances in each mirror, she waves a pleasant ‘hello…’ For maybe, there is truly someone in there! Overwhelmed with the concept of living just as a small being, she blinks her eyes and opens them wide. She writes down her realization. “Everything and everyone is just a thing.” As her hand molds the words clear across the page, the girl questions sanity and realizes her mind is locked in a cage. A bird stuck in its own cocoon, or a butterfly left to die alone in its nest. She was forsaken, and it felt as though she had always been. She writes again, “No matter what I learn there is always more out there. No matter what I understand, there is always something I cannot. No matter how many questions I ask, I will always be left in some sort of confusion. For right now, I have reached the world of ‘nothing’. My body has reached the place where I can feel my chest growing lighter. I have reached the place where I wonder why I am here and why I have each desire. I am now in the realm of questioning all I know. I have been locked in the place where forgotten seconds go.” She scribbles faster, discovering incomprehensible things. Her arms slip away as she becomes distracted by the itch on her lip. All she can think about is scratch, scratch, scratch. Scratching out her thoughts, she runs her fingertips across the bumps along her knee. “Why do I feel sensations, and why do emotions reign my actions? Why do I feel towards anything? What is the point of all these interactions? One day, I won’t stand anymore, and one day, I won’t breathe. One day, the future will be more than just a date, and one day, I will realize that all I care for is to leave. Someday, I hope to fill the gaps in my mind, because in this reality, everyone is blind.”
The girl closes her eyelids and raises her hands to cup her brain. She feels the indentations of her temples, as her thoughts try to wrap around time. Once again, she stares at the creature of a reflection. She wrestles with the beast’s movement= as each girl lifts her right arm and left arm in sync. “Why is my head placed on such a body? Why is the universe so large, and I’m just some tiny nobody? Why was I granted the ability to think? What is the motive behind every word I speak? Are these my ideas, or is every person just a story that has already been told?” Slowly, she stands from the blank corner of her mind, she steps forward to the candle; trying to discern reality, she sticks her finger in the flame. Is it her mind that is panicking or is she really in pain? The heat from the newly formed burn radiates through her ring finger. She decides for today that she is still alive, so she walks back to her paper. She flips over her pencil and erases all the questions that her naïve-self previously said. She looks in the mirror and decides, “Well, at least I am not dead”. She opens her mouth and searches for sense in anything. She asks the girl, staring straight into
her eyes’ windows, “What is the purpose of you?” And on the piece of paper she carves, “Nothing.”
THE POLITICS OF KENDRA 