Who Am I?

     I fell asleep tonight thinking about Me. I fell asleep looking at myself in my mind's Mirror and when I awoke in that wonderful, fantastical World of Dreams, I stood before that Mirror and no reflection looked back at me. I did not know who I was. The Mirror spoke to me in parables that I could not understand, and try as I might, my reflection would not return. I decided, therefore, to ask the Mirror to tell me who I was and why I could not see myself.

     “Mirror, Mirror, here with me, whose reflection do you see?"

     The Mirror was silent. It would not speak to me, except in words I could not understand, and so, I took a rock and smashed the Mirror, and as I did all the words and parables the Mirror was saying turned into spirits that rushed away and fled into the Woods. The spirits all had the same face, I realized, and that face was mine.

     There was one spirit that lingered on the edge of the Forest of My Thoughts. I looked at her and saw in her eyes anger and fear and pain and it made me want to cry. I looked at her for a moment and then I ran because she was not beautiful. She was dark and ugly and she was not Me.

      I ran into the Woods looking for the lost spirit that I would know was Me. I searched and searched until I found Me sitting by a brook singing. I approached her and said, "Hello, what is your name?"

     I don't know why I asked her name, because obviously she was Me, but that's not what she said.

     She said, "My name is Innocence." And as I looked at her I saw all my childhood dreams enraptured on her face and all the sweetness and goodness and loveliness I had ever felt rang in the pure tone of her voice. She was so young and full of life. She was precious and I loved her. I held out my hand to her, but she shrank back.

     "Don't touch me," she said, fear trembling in her voice. "I don't know you."

     "But, of course you do! Don't you recognise me?" I said taken aback.

     She shook her curly head and laughed. "We may have met once, and I do think I remember seeing you before, but that was a long time ago!"

     I frowned. What did she mean? I reached out to take her hand, but she flitted away and before I could chase her she was gone. Her laughter lingered in the air, that was a long time ago, and I realized she was right. I was not Innocence anymore.

     I kept traveling through those mysterious Woods until I found Me again sitting on the earth's floor, reading a Book. I approached, sure that I had found the one true Me.

     "Hello," I said, "What's your name?"

     The girl looked up at me. She looked back down at her Book and then back at me. "Faith," she said, as if it were the only logical answer.

     I smiled, "Are you reading the book of James? That's my favorite, you know."

     Faith beamed and showed me the page: James chapter three. "Do you believe?" She asked and I looked at her, incredulous.

     "Of course I believe! If you believe, then I believe. We're the same person!" I said testily.

     Faith shook her head firmly. "There's a difference between saying so and believing so. Only if you believe can you be made right. Do you believe with all your heart?"

     "Sure, I guess."

     "I'll only be real when you are sure. Only when you believe with all your heart..." Faith disappeared, vanishing into thin air like the morning dew. She wasn't Me either.

     I kept searching and searching and found many other Me's. I met a Me named Talent and one named Wisdom; I met a Me named Love and one named Happiness. I met many, many Me's, but just like the first two, they all disappeared.

     I was lost and confused in my own mind. I trudged through the Pools of Memory trying to find Me, but I could find nothing. I collapsed on a tree stump, baffled and disoriented. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement. I turned around and there she was. The Me with dark and sinister eyes, the first Me I had seen within the Forest. She approached slowly, like a cat slinking around its prey, trying to find the softest place in which to sink its teeth.

     I spoke first. "What is your name?" I asked, though I really didn't want to know.

     "You," she said, her reply dripping sweetly from her tongue, making me want to consume and believe it with all my heart. But, there was a glint in her eye that made me pause.

     "You're lying," I said as she lurked closer. My voice quivered.

     "Fear," she said, and I believed her. She kept going, "Hate, Agony, Lust, Deceit, Greed..." Each name dropped from her tongue like sugar delights and I ate them ravenously, savored them as I believed her. It scared me, but it was too delicious to resist those candied words.

     "Me." She said finally, and the last gumdrop fell from her mouth, bright and red. I ate it, but it was sour. I spat it out. That was a caramelized lie, and suddenly I knew it.

     "You tricked me!" I yelled and she only laughed. She laughed and laughed as she held out her hand and ran her fingers across my cheek. Her eyes swam, dark pools upon her face, and I could see evil there. I shuddered.

     "You believed me," she said knowingly, "and that's all it takes."

     "No!" I screamed and pushed her away. The pools in her eyes caught fire. "That's not me!" I said pointing at her. She started laughing again, like a hyena. Loathing boiled in me and I screamed again.

     "No!" That devil child lying in the dirt before me laughing at me, was not Me. She was deformed, crooked, and evil. She was secretive and lying. She was spiteful, covetous, and mean. She was bad. She was not Me!

     Suddenly her face blanched and she stopped laughing. A tear rolled down her cheek.

     "Don't kill me," she whimpered and scrambled to my hold my feet. "Don't send me away!"

     "Too late..." I said and I kicked her. I kicked her clear out of my Mind, far, far away.

      Then I woke up.

     I woke up this morning thinking about Me. When I looked in the mirror I saw Her. I saw Them, actually. I saw all the girls I had met in the Forest: Innocence, Faith, Talent, Wisdom, Love, Happiness, and all the other Me's I had seen. They were all looking at Me and smiling.

     She was there, too, the dark one. But she was small and weak, and I know if I keep kicking her she will never be strong enough to control Me again. Everyone has a little Bad in them, you see, but not everyone has to let her rule them.

     That's what I dreamed when I fell asleep. What will you dream?