MIRROR MIRROR OF THE WORD

There Mike stood… staring at the dusty Bible he had just pulled out from the abandoned book shelf… He

had no idea who owned the Bible but had an inkling of how it had gotten into the bookshelf…

He grew up to know a studious preacher dad and an assiduous mum who spent 12 hours at work & 3 hours in the kitchen every week day – and her weekends where spent in community services. He never had anyone show him the ropes about anything from age 14. 

“Everything you need to learn about life is in the Bible” his dad would drum into his ears… the same words that drove him away from church… from the bible and from everything that was attached to Jesus. It was a rebellion against the factors that took away his parents’ love. 

 He got a call that his parents had an accident earlier that day while driving to a village in Osun State for missions. He didn’t feel pity or sadness when he heard the news; the only emotion that crossed his mind was an inexplicable calm. On his 19th birthday he had finally gathered the balls to walk away from home and not look back… and his relationship with his parents had grown worse from that day. 

“How could Christian parents be this mean?” Mike would tell anyone who cared to listen. 

He had arrived his parents abode late in the evening to avoid anyone in the estate seeing him. The ‘50s mini-duplex was deserted. 

As Mike considered the Bible, he observed that the edges were glowing. A phenomenon he hadn’t heard of before. He reached out and opened it carefully, ready to take to his heels if anything popped out of it. As the cover opened a bright light pierced through the semi darkness and Mike had to shield his eyes from the penetrating light. 

He stayed that way for about twenty seconds until he felt his eyes had adjusted to the brightness. He finally opened them and saw a glowing mirror suspended mid-air over the spot where the Bible had lain. He saw what looked like a human form in the mirror… but the image was shrivelled and looked infected with all sorts of skin irritations… it looked dead 

On close observation he realized that image had the same features he had… the mole on his nose was there and the eye-colour was the same. In fright he quickly observed his arm to see if he had any infections on it… his research showed different… so why did he look like a corpse on the mirror in front of him? 

He stepped closer to the mirror and observed faint letterings in the foreground… he mouthed the words “…as we continue to behold as in a mirror the glory of God, we are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in an ever increasing splendour…” 

As he mouthed these words… he saw part of the shrivelled face in the mirror peel off. And the skin under that part looked like a visual effects from a Sci-fi flick – it glowed. In confusion Mike mouthed the words again… yet again another portion of the shrivelled face peeled off revealing more glory on the image… and he could see the shrivelled skin float away into oblivion 

So Mike kept repeating the verse until the entire image was alive with glory… then the mirror collapsed like a folding pamphlet… once again it was the old dusty Bible… but Mike couldn’t stop mouthing the words, because he felt lighter every time he said them and he felt all the hate he felt for his parents fade away into oblivion…