The mirror of memories and secrets appeared before me, in one of my many dreams that wandered through my long, sleepless and tormented nights. In the darkness of night, in my chamber of solitude and desolation.
My nocturnal refuge had become my prison,
from which I could no longer escape. The tall windows, adorned with Gothic ornament and stained glass depicting scenes from a bygone age, stood like walls of glass between me and the outer world—a world I could no longer touch, no longer reach.
The ancient piano gazed at me in astonishment as I sat absorbed in my thoughts, completely lost in the labyrinth of my visions. I could no longer recognise my own reflection in that great mirror of exquisite and delicate craftsmanship—yet its reflection seemed cast beneath a spell, the origin of which I could not fathom.
Dressed in a majestic, cumbersome gown of purest white, I could no longer see my reflection in that mirror. It was as though it longed to reveal to me my true image—not the one to which I had grown accustomed. Silence carved deep furrows in my heart, making me understand that utter solitude was my destiny and my dwelling place.
Engaging in a soliloquy, I hoped to summon spirits that might assist me in my transformation—into a new, intangible entity, ethereal, no longer made of matter. So I searched, with my gaze, for references, for remnants of the past that might help me find direction, but in the end I understood: I stood within a dark and unfamiliar realm, a place that filled me with fear and awe.
If I had been granted the privilege of a common and ordinary existence—the kind that most mortals, or nearly all, are given with ease—with all its hopes, its chances, and the facilitations that I have never known, perhaps I would not have found myself in that realm of unwholesome madness and aberrant hallucinations that followed me through the shadowed corridors of that castle of illusions and decay, whose walls were soaked in tears, piercing sighs, and the dust of lives long gone.
The mirror of memories and secrets in truth, was not there to keep me company, but to reveal to me my true essence—my soul, and the image of my heart, defaced and torn apart by pain, torment, disappointment, and betrayal. It was no ordinary mirror; it was a portal to another realm—the world of souls lost in oblivion and in the torpor of death. A world that seemed a deep, infinite abyss, where despair and sorrow, regret and the memory of the dead shone like stars—but stars of a darkened light.
And in that very world I remained—no longer a prisoner, but a part of that abyss, of that darkness and dimmed light, for my heart had not ceased to beat, yet my soul had ceased to shine.
Elisabetta
