The Pact

It always happens like this at a threshold. An edge where one place ends and another begins.

Stand at a border and you may decide where you wish to belong. Even if you cannot go there.

Look in one direction and you will know that there is another.

She stood at the shallow well. Laughing at the wet colours, singing a thought. The sun's lamp lit the clear water in which she saw her likeness as in a dream, and as in a dream she was pleased. She stared at her face, her skin a shade too dark perhaps. Her eyes were too round but sweet. Her image found favour. She saw her self. The truth held.

But truth is as a mirror we have an uneasy pact with. There is always an image we may or may not care to see. A reflection that is open to influence. A deal that can be broken.

She thrust in her jar shaking the reflection and as she pulled it back up, her smile came to meet her. She looked down into the well as if to give thanks.

The shocked water simmered and foamed, and in each foaming bit a new body took shape. One became a hundred. Each reflecting a barely perceptible image of her. Again she laughed. Then looked away.

Staring into the distance she waited for the water to settle. Hoping to see one truth.

Just one.