A writing prompt: Write about a time when things stayed the same

Maa gently looks over me from behind as I am seated on a revolving bar stool. I sit in a room with white walls on three sides, except one in front of me where I see our Reflection. Its not sharp, but it isn’t blur either. However, mom looks slightly different. The nose is not as flared, i tilt my head upward to double check, and she’s taller in the reflection, slightly. Also I don’t spot rimless glasses I’m so used to seeing on her face.

Khair,

Mom starts combing my hair – long, curly, tangled, big freaking locks. Thick and black and just frizzy. I remember mom combing my hair, untangling the knots separating the strands entwined like earphone wires in my pocket. Gently. Upwards. Without my head getting pulled backwards or me screaming “ow ow ow!”

I saw my reflection from the side of my eye and similar gestures and behavior was taking place. It felt like it was more of a fight. Combing hair.

After my braid was done, prim tidy neat; I noticed my reflection was grumpy. Braids may not have been a favorite or something different in that reflection. I didn’t quite understand myself. It wasn’t bothering me too much, yet!

Next, mom brought a pair of clothes. I quickly got hold of a cornet and started rubbing the material on my hand, my precise requirement for any garment being – it should be soft enough to wear after a bath, so I can wear it anytime.

While on the other hand, that same soft material caused my reflection to brawl, wail, freaking walk like a scarecrow. I was taken aback. I wasn’t even doing that. I was still sitting in my chair and content with the piece of cloth.

It was irking me, this weird vision of myself doing the same thing like me, but with amplified and intense reactions. So I started biting my nails. So did my reflection.

I heard mom screaming, “you bite your nails one more time and I’ll apply chilli powder on your fingers!”

Who even heard that kind of crap from adults? Well, I was 8. So I got scared. But mom din’t do it. But the mom in the reflection did.

Holy crap! I thought. I sprung out of my chair, so did my reflection. What kind of sane mother does this to her child? Then my mom whacked me on my head, the gentle kind, but also one filled with a bit of anger and the “I told you so”. She said go and look at your nails in the mirror.

My tiny nails, on my hand, not so beautiful and long like my mother’s, were being pushed inside by the tip of my now fleshy fingers. But when I went close to the reflection and saw my nails on the other side, they were fine. Intact. Still growing.
Except two crooked ones that had been bitten. But mom put chilli on them.

Flustered, I turned and looked at my mom. “What sorcery is this maa?”

She glided at lightning speed, like the earth moved her close to me, her nose almost touching mine and said, ‘it’s you. Not me!”
I flinched. “What are you talking about mom?”
I got another whack on my little head, while our eyes are still locked. She turned me around.

She said, “That reflection in the mirror is not you. It’s Ms.S. And that mother is not me, it’s you!”

So many things are the same. It’s surreal and weird.
I have given birth to a xerox, a clone.
The resemblance to my younger self is extremely uncanny.

And so, everyday I remember a time when things were the same, because everyday I live my life all over again!