[100 Challenge] Ocean_12

The Mirror Gazes Back

I had not been sleeping well. I rose uneasily from a mire of forgotten dreams, slid my arms limply into my coat, and went walking in the pre-dawn twilight. The empty avenues hung in gaunt mist. At this hour the trees shuddered with the movement of the morning birds. The brick houses stood cold and quiet, leaning against each other as though drunkards holding each other up, and the dewed glass of the windows gazing on me with glaucous eyes. My steps took me this way and that, I let my feet lead, I thought only of nothing. The eastern quarter began waking up. The gate to the botanical garden lay open. The hinges creaked in the wind as I passed. I walked between trees still as coffins. Amongst the whispering trees, a flash of the night dream: a mirror looking back at me.