THE CRACKED MIRROR

2025-06-29 09:27:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

THE CRACKED MIRROR

It started out as a useless conversation. About the word "crazy". What does it mean, when is it used, to whom do we express it, why do we say it... And yesterday on the hottest day of the month, under a shadow, explanation followed explanation. We were three friends. Me, Ismail and Ferdi. Now old, so the words we uttered we said slowly as if they were chosen, weighed words and we never insisted like mules to stamp a thought. That the truth of the hour is this, what I say and that's it.

-Everyone in the world is crazy, that is, even one of us. So I'm not just talking about the three of us, -Ismaili said.-Here, the simplest, our age should stay home at lunch. Do we follow it? No, even though the doctor tells us you'll die from the heat if you go out. But we don't fart. So we're crazy. Me, you, him.

There was silence. But we nodded our heads. Approval, that is.

"You said it right, Ismail," we said almost in unison.

-True, we're a little crazy, -I was talking. -Or we're really crazy. For example, my son brought me some euros from Greece. I kept them at home for months and months. I heard about thefts and robberies around the house, but I never moved. The day before yesterday I took them to the bank, -I told them anyway that I still have them at home.

"You're completely crazy," my two friends shouted at me.

Ferdi got ready to speak, then seemed to pull back. As if he was weighing his words, in a dilemma whether to speak or not. And after a few seconds he said:

-Life is a normal mirror for some and a cracked, tarnished mirror for some. This is more accurate. There, in the mirror, we see all our foolishness. I'm talking especially about the relationship we build with our spouse, with our family, with our children...

Then he fell silent. Those of us who have known him since high school immediately thought of his long flirtation a few years ago with a girl who was his office colleague. He fell in love with her, but so did she. Ferdi was quite a man, he had a position in society, with all those businesses, with wide social acquaintances. There was so much talk and talk at that time, we friends even advised him to protect his family, to give up that adventure, not to bring trauma to his wife and three sons who were quite grown, but his mind didn't ask at all. He had been drunk since dawn as if on four double shots of raki. He was flying, flying, the clouds seemed close to him. As if they were hovering over his shoulders.

-You remember my story with Berta. You also remember the advice you gave me, -he began. -I didn't hear you say I was in seventh heaven. Not to lie to you, those times still make me happy today. I mean, they make me happy, but they also make me sad. I loved Berta, in fact, and today I say exactly-exactly I don't know why I loved her. And she wasn't the one who approached me. I stopped her, with my humor, with many small cares, but they talked, with some spicy trips and there we got along. We thought we had become obsessed with each other. Ah, how much I love you, I often told her. I love you more than myself, you tell me all day. My great age, compared to hers, was crushing me, you tell me, you are lucky, man, to have such a beautiful and so young lover! Add to that her sincere words and I was almost going overboard. I was almost breaking up the marriage. But fate helped me. Not that I changed my mind, but that Berta said, enough, enough. It was an inner voice of hers, a correction of behavior, a weighing of feelings, I still don't know that. But she was determined. She wouldn't accept any explanation, no flash meeting. That we are like fire and gunpowder, if we were together, even for a few seconds, it would be justified. I accepted this course. Not easily, though. And so I dragged myself back home. My wife opened the door for me. She understood everything, but didn't speak, she returned to the kitchen and shouted from there:

-Come on and close the door or the flies will come in!

I walked like a sloppy Gaqo. A full leg and a half of a slouch. I glanced at the mirror in the hallway, to see myself. I believed I would be a dead man, battered, half-dead. I was surprised, in the mirror I saw two people. Me and… me. A Ferd split in two. I rubbed my eyes, opened them. Like that again. I went to clean the mirror with a handkerchief. But no, I did it in vain. It was fine. Smooth, clean, without a mark. My mind was crazy. That's what I told my mind. Since that day, in every mirror I see, at home or in the world, my portrait appears split in two. And not with a straight line, like the ones we do in Excel on the computer. But with irregular lines like those scratches we see after an echo when we visit the doctor's heart. In those glances that I give myself, I tell myself, there are cracks in the mirror, because what you did was a crack. A crack that doesn't stick. Like broken bread. What is broken doesn't stick, but is eaten. A crack that shows you the signs of the madness you had, like the red sign at the traffic light at the intersection. The signs appear not only when you look at yourself on the glass of the mirror, but also when you look at yourself, for example, on the water in the pot. Or in some pond in the hills and mountains. How cracked your action was. So cracked, that it releases sparks on the glass. They are not visible to others, but for you they are symbols called languages, that speak, that show, accuse. Of course they communicate only with me. Of course, they scratch only me...

We didn't stay silent long after this simple, yet philosophical and self-critical explanation before some lightning and a wild summer rain started. Furious.

"It's raining," the three of us said and ran back to our homes./ CNA