Looking Through the Mirror

by Andrew Clark
Sometimes I feel like I'm in a foreign land 
:And there's a mirror I'm looking through
:Lost in the place where I was born
:Without a hand to hold on to...
:---Stevie Nicks, "Docklands
It's funny, it really is when you think about it. 
Life is but a Dream, like it says in the Nursery song. 
I sit here at the theatre and watch the men and women act out a melodrama of lost love and betrayal. I see the people around me try to hide their tears as the magic of the Story sweeps them away. I feel everything they feel. I feel the ecstasy of new love, I relish in the pain of forgotten passion. I sit in the audience with them, but I'm not an observer, not a casual critic. I am these people's hopes, Dreams and fears. I see into their thoughts... and I can make their fantasies come true. 
I also can shatter their Reality. Not even sleep could provide them with peace. 
I walk through the streets in the morning hours and watch them rush to their 9 to 5 jobs...hoping that if they are late...maybe the boss won't notice. I walk among them, and they stop and stare. Some come up to me and ask me questions, others just gawk. Their souls can see I'm something different. A non-native in their world of Steel and Concrete...yet...their eyes tell them I am one of them. Some shrug it off as a sense of Deja-vu and continue on with their menial jobs, others watch until I'm gone...sensing that maybe that the Magic they believed in as a child just might be real. 
:I know for a fact that Magic is real. 
:I'm feeling the hate of the world and its crushing me
:I'm feeling the hate of everyday life its crushing me
:I swallow the hate, betrayal and lies
:Swallow it all and shove it deep down inside
:I'm feeling the weight of the world...and its crushing me 
:--- Stabbing Westward "Crushing Me 
If Magic wasn't real I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be breathing. I wouldn't be thinking these thoughts. Sometimes I wish it weren't real. This "world" is scary enough without it. 
:I am magic.
:I am Dreams.
:I am Glamour. 
The existence of Faerie is both one of stunning experiences and breathtaking beauty... and it is one of loneliness and longing. A longing that can never, ever be fulfilled. Like a Void, it takes everything. I don't belong here. This isn't my home. I am Sidhe, a Noble, a Dreamlord. Yet, in reality I'm nothing. I'm not real, for they don't believe in me. 
Sometimes I feel as if I'm standing in the middle of a crowd and screaming at the top of my lungs....and no one is hearing me. To them...I'm a myth...an ancient make-believe story that grandmothers spin their tales with. I stop at the newsstand and buy a copy of the New York Times...casually reading the headlines as I sip my coffee. Global Warming, Nuclear Ban treaties, Bio-chemical Weapons, another problem with the WTO. It all seems so trivial to me...so stupid. I feel the cold fingers of Banality clutch at my soul. 
No...It isn't supposed to be like this. 
I walk to my car and open the door...slipping inside and sitting on the seat, turning the key and starting the engine. 
Something is pulling on the tip of my ear, my gracefully tapered ear...I look in the rearview mirror and see Pix, the little Never that seemed to have taken a liking to me. He flutters around and lands on my shoulder, giggling as he tells me some far-fetched story...before long I'm laughing. 
I pulled out of the parking space, heady with the Magic of Creativity and Dreams. 
Today is going to be a great day.