An Encounter between Past and Present

“Look at the smoke”, said I and kept saying it until I could say it no more. No one looked at me as I stumbled on my way to the restroom. My friends were too lost in the music to notice me leave and I was too drunk to make’em notice me leave.

Fortunately the lights weren’t too bright when I entered the restroom; saved me from the sudden pinch I usually feel in my head. The room looked empty to me as I sat on the floor, right in front of the big mirrors on the wall. I felt an urge to puke and thought I was gonna pass out until, surprisingly, this little girl of about 10 years old ran before me into this dark corner of the room. Curious, I followed her into the corner where she tried to reach the sink and wash her hands covered with mud.

Appalled by the possibility of how they could let a little girl enter a night club, I convinced myself that I was hallucinating. So I went back to the lightened part of the room and sitting on the floor once again, anxiety filled me up; I realized I was sweating and wanting so desperately to scream, I couldn’t open my mouth. Maybe I was asleep and all this was a dream, but why would I need this to be a dream? What was so bad about this situation? No, there was no sunshine, no birds singing but only darkness, and this darkness seemed so usual and familiar that it didn’t scare me. There was nothing negative about it.

Perhaps it was the possibility of the unusual presence of the little girl that bothered me. Hoping my initial doubts of hallucinating to be confirmed, I went to the same dark corner once again only to see her standing frozen like a rock, shivering, wanting so desperately to scream but I guess she couldn’t open her mouth, while a strange dirty huge man did whatever he wanted to do with her, using her however it suited his evil purpose.

Not being able to believe what I saw, I puked, ran out of that cursed place and dropped myself on the floor in front of the mirrors looking at myself in one of’em. I couldn’t even tolerate the stare of my own reflection at myself, nevertheless I kept staring back at it until I finally saw her, the poor little girl replace my reflection, and that is when I recognized her in myself.