Mirror Eye

Série de 3 episódios - por Clara Ribeiro

It was a normal weekday afternoon, and Tatiana stared into space, trying to focus on the lunch she needed to prepare for her family. Her two youngest boys fought over who would choose the film to watch, while the eldest daughter continued with her face buried in her phone, typing for who knows who. The phone rang, and Tatiana ran to answer it, suspicious of the last time they "called the wrong number" with a woman's voice (kind of sensual, if you precisely heard), while she was still with Fred. He answered the phone, but it was a telemarketing guy, she didn't have time to talk whatsoever, so hung up without warning. She went to the fridge to get the onion to chop for the steak, while she calculated that she still had clothes to take out of the washing machine, so she could put the machine with the children's dirty uniform from the day at school, hoping that there would be other clean and dry pairs of uniforms to the next morning. But between picking up the onion and thinking about the dirty uniforms to be washed, Tatiana forgot that she had opened the door to the cabinet above the sink that was next to the refrigerator, and she hits her head, with all the strength of someone who was trying hard to be as quick as possible.

She fell hard to the floor.

When Tatiana woke up, she didn't recognize the place that she was. She got up from chair, realizing that the place, similar to the house in a dream she had when she was a child, had other people: a teenager, a child and a very elderly lady.

She adjusted her appearance to appear less lost than she really was, she smiled at the people there with typical mother's tiredness. The old lady smiled back, the teenager noticed the kind of greeting but ignored it, and the child came running to talk to her.

- Hey! What's your name?

- Hi, cutie! I'm Tatiana. And you?

- Tatiana? I'm also Tatiana!!! Yay!!! - and ran in circles.

Tatiana was confused, she found the girl very similar to herself when she was a child. She shook her head to get out of her thoughts, and looked at the other two, to try to understand what was happening. The teenager noticed right away that she was being watched.

- Wow, sometimes adults are really stupid, right? You don't understand anything, do you??

- N-No - she shook her head negatively, surprisingly intimidated by the girl's harshness.

- Hahaha! I can't believe it, the brat is more smart than you are.

- What's going on here? W-where are we, guys? I think I slept too deeply! Did I hit my head?

- You died! - She said abruptly, widening her eyes.

Tatiana fell into the chair she had just gotten up from.

- Girl, don't do that. You wouldn't like them woud do that to you. - The old woman decided to intercede.

- I really don't like it, and my parents always do it. They forbid me from doing everything I like... it's death for me!!

- So if you don't like it, don't do it! Even more so with yourself! Recklessness!

The girl lowered her arched eyebrow and frowned, lifting the headphones to her ears.

Tatiana thought she was going to vomit, or run out of breath, or have a stroke, something was going to happen, because that situation was crazy.

- ...lady, this is... This is purgatory? - She whispered to the elderly lady.

- Tatiana, my dear, look into my eyes!

Tatiana was surprised, but obeyed assertively. She looked deep into the old lady's eyes, and I almost fell back again:

- What the fuck?? Is it a mirror??

- Hahahahahahaha! - All Tatianas laughed in unison, except the adult.

- You are me, she is me, and she is me, everyone me! - explained the child.

- We are all you, Tatiana. Our essence is the same, we are the same woman at different times in life. - said the elderly woman softly but firmly, stroking the child's hair.

- How?? - Adult Tatiana looks at all her versions, in disbelief - How you are me, if I can't remember being like this?

- Hahahaha! She is so know it all that she doesn't even know who she is! - hunted the teenager, prickly.

- Wow, how rude you are! I wasn't like that, no way!!

- Tati, calm down. Accept it, it's you. You have become so lost in the caring of others that you have forgotten who you are. This angry, injured teenager is part of you. That child who is there in the corner drawing and you didn't even notice is you. That old woman that you looked in the eye and didn't want to see, is you. I'm you. We are you.

(end of episode 1)