"Today like every other day I walk the winding dusty road, to the water reservoir where I’ll fill up my pot of water for the family. It’s just a few minutes’ walk but so early in the morning, the sun barely up, it feels like forever. A feeling I readily accept, the longer it takes me to get there, the better.
It sounds silly I know but the water there scares me. When I look down into it, I see my reflection but it isn’t just me I see… I see a thousand images of my life, a twisted dreamland that engulfs me in a fantasy but is still very real. It scares me because what I see in there is unbelievable but still everything is true and it changes itself as I do, as my life does."
...
"Now it scares me but that wasn’t always so. The water once had reflected a happier place. I wasn’t afraid then. It showed me a land where the sky was of amazing hues; pinks blues and greens everywhere. My friends were fantastic creatures, we would play all day and sometimes we would soar through the skies, so happy we were! The sun shone brightly but it was never hot, the seasons never changed, it was always the best weather.
There were scary trolls and monsters here too, they would come around every now and then but baba would send them away. One of them even took dada but baba told me it was alright and that he would be safe."
...
Aai, baba and I were so happy in this world, not unlike in reality but many times when I was sad I would come and see this vision in the lake, it would remind me that everything was alright.
Then when baba died, I felt lost and confused. He had killed himself, I can’t understand why. We were so happy, all of us, why would he do this? Aai was doing all the work and I would help her as much as I could.
My only respite it seemed was my world in the lake, I went down there one day on the pretense to fill some water but really I wanted to go back to the wonderful place the water reflected. Get away from all this pain and sorrow.
...
I peered in this second time, this time I felt like my first reflection had lied. The world I had seen was no more, instead my Eden had turned to hell, all my wonderful friends were gone, and the earth was cracked and barren.
The skies were grey and heavy but there was no relief of rain, only an unbearable heat that emanated from the ground. Aai was there but she looked shocked and haggard, the monsters baba had protected us from had taken over and they kept badgering us to give back something we had taken, I didn’t know what it was but I would have given it back gladly. Dada was back but his presence made no difference. My family and I were suffering in this new world we had been thrust into. These evil creatures accused of stealing and taking their possessions and to stay alive, by some way we had to give them back.
...
