Over and over...

           Story:   Just as your eyesight returns, just as you start to focus on what's in front of you, the  realization you've  been somewhere else creeps in.  You've mentally left your present environment to concentrate on subjects from afar.   Many times the fool sneaks up on you, appearing without warning; other times you seek him out.  How  often have you cursed the inventor of the mirror, the one sole who through his cunning mind, makes all humans look at one more stranger; and gave them one more person to deal with, yourself.  One look into those eyes surrounded by wrinkles and gullies carved by a hard existence give you a twisted and chiseled  understanding of life.  How awkward you feel when you realize that same  life is no more than a mirror image of the worn and cracked paint on your car.  They’re all signs.  They are all signs of the past.  Unique as a fingerprint those signs of  creation and decay.   No two pasts are the same, no two futures as long.  Your memories are  all you, the sum of your attention.  The sun rising and bringing with it the days heat, the loud music from the apartment down the hall, the clinking bottles being taken out from one more weekend,  it’s all you.   The day has started just like it has every day for the past year, the 5:00 a.m.  chill.   Today it’s the Beatles “love me tender, love me sweet”.  I know that tune; we met once before while looking at my past in the small  mirror hanging over the wash basin.  I  remembered how she looked that day and how lucky the fool in the mirror was.  I'll  wonder the rest of the day where she is and hope she's happy.   Funny how memories keep returning, and every once in awhile you get a hold of a good one.  All the best, RJ.

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