Wake Up Time

“You will achieve greater things than you could ever imagine, you will be important to the world and you will lead other men to make things better for us all” said to me a psychic-priest who was a friend of my mum’s when I was about 13. At the time I didn’t think that much about it, I had greater things in mind, bicycle jumps, Nintendo, Making tapes for my then first girlfriend, play hide n’ seek with the other kids in my street and whenever I ever had some time left, I could then maybe do my school homework. I was just another little brat, like one of the school teachers used to call us in 9^th grade. Besides, who would have listened to a crazy old guy who claimed to once have seen the light of God in his life and then turned to preaching about the parallel future that had been presented to his mind.

Life was good. Those care-free days, lying on the grass, doing nothing but looking up the sky, picturing imaginary shapes formed by the fluffy clouds above. I sometimes wondered about what adults used to tell me, I just couldn’t get passed the idea of living like them. School was serious enough already to be wasting my brain power on anything else other than how to avoid the bully from the street ‘round the corner or what songs and how many of them would I squeeze into the next cassette tape I’d give to Katherine.

If I had followed that dream and had it my way, I would have grown to become an Astronaut. But when I was 15, I was turned down for the Air Force and everything just felt apart. An eyesight problem made my medical exam a failure. The door was slammed right at my face. That door would never be opened again. After that day, everything started to move much faster than before. It was like watching a video tape on slow motion and then pressing the fast forward button on the remote. The picture I always saw so clear, became blurred and blocked. I was entering a new stage in my life and it was an abrupt change. One day I found myself facing decisions, life-changing ones, I had to realize all of it by myself. I then learned that I always had choices and that there were no simple plans in them. Growing up was finally happening and it sucked.

Years went by and I lived fast. Those words I once heard would occasionally echo in my head but I still did not listen. I let them linger in there until they gathered dust. Instead I opted to follow my gut reaction. I left home, went onto college, I lived by myself and it felt comforting to have a life you could call your own, where I was setting up the rules, I learnt how to, then ruled my world. Then when I was 23, coincidence played that dirty game. I was struck by lightning: “Remember… you will achieve greater things than you could ever imagine, you will be important to the world and you will lead other men to make things better for us all” said again the same old man I had seen almost a decade back. I though, “well, he probably says this to everybody else out there, fair enough. This is best ignored”. I think he noticed my scepticism, because right then he mentioned all these things that would be happening to me in the years ahead. I simply thought that I was not going to buy that crap anymore. I turned around and walked away. If only I knew of the things to come I would have tried to make the difference.

Dear Captain, I hope you receive this letter soon. I noticed you looked discouraged and hollow. I tried to reach out to you, but you were ill at ease, hopeless. You could not see I was trying to tell you these things in fact never happened to me. They happened to you.

I looked at you and you looked at me. I have given you the expressions you never give. And I know you’ve been searching, keep searching and it’s not there. You could hide your thoughts from everybody else, but not from me, because I am the one showing them to you. That’s why and out of concern, I’m writing to you in the hope you would read these lines that will help you understand those words were indeed aimed at you, the man outside this mirror. I’m locked-up in this glass and I can’t help you otherwise. Don’t confuse that look in your eyes as distant, it’s just gotten wiser. I know you wish you were working with your hands, but you will. You have already started, you are always doing it for others, it’s just that you don’t notice it. People are depending on you and they expect you to comply. Some people will come and go, others will disappear, but what’s important is that there’ll be a few who will stick around for the long ride. Just be true to them and they will be true to you. It’s time to get rid off the bullet-proof shell you had covered yourself in. Get rid off that wrapping around you and you will see me as truth and bone through this window to the mind.

Yours truthfully,

The man in the mirror.