One ordinary Sunday in an ordinary town an ordinary boy was born to a pair of ordinary parents.
The ordinary parents loved their ordinary boy and gave him as many ordinary experiences their ordinary selves could imagine. And the ordinary boy loved his ordinary parents and the ordinary experiences they gave him.
And everything continued on for the ordinary family in an ordinary manner until one ordinary day the ordinary boy fell extraordinarily ill.
It took ten days for the ordinary doctors to figure out what was wrong with the ordinary boy, and during that time the ordinary boy grew sicker and sicker. And his ordinary parents grew more and more concerned. On the tenth day the doctors finally returned the ordinary boy to his ordinary parents and the family returned to their ordinary home in celebration. But by that point a most extraordinary thing had occurred. The boy had become no-longer-ordinary. Extraordinary seemed too strong of a word โ the boy was very cautious with words, especially strong ones for he knew the deep magic they sprung from, but at the very least he was indeed no-longer-ordinary.
As time passed the no-longer-ordinary boy continued to grow and have ordinary experiences. However, he noticed a strange shift had occurred: each time he would undergo to what to his friends was an ordinary experience he would experience it, within his own mind, as "not-quite-so-ordinary."
Yes, something was indeed off for the no-longer-ordinary boy. And slowly but surely he came to realize this.
Often he found himself asking friends: "that experience we just shared..." he would always begin, "...that wasn't-quite-so-ordinary now, was it?"
The no-longer-ordinary boy was *very* concerned that his experiences be ordinary for he could feel his not-quite-so-ordinaryness and developed the habit of checking in with others to try and feel less not-ordinary. It never helped.
"Whatever are you talking about, ordinary boy?" his friends would always reply.
"Oh... never mind... it's probably nothing" the no-longer-ordinary boy would always answer.
All this back and forth confusion about his supposedly-ordinary-but-in-fact-maybe-not-quite-so-ordinary experiences grew within him into a crack down the middle of his soul โ a partition between the ordinary and the not-quite-so-ordinary. This was easier for the no-longer-ordinary boy. He didn't know what else to do.
The crack was extensive. It separated each bit of him from another โ cell from cell and memory from memory. He couldn't see the cracks, and neither could anyone else. Distressed, he would cry out to strangers "Hello, I seem to have these cracks in my soul, do you know what I'm talking about? Do you have these too?" and each time the answer was only "Whatever are you talking about ordinary boy? I don't see any cracks. I've never felt anything like that at all."
Time went on for the no-longer-ordinary boy and the crack down the middle of his soul grew wider and wider and ever more branching. Slowly but surely twisting itself farther and farther into the deepest parts of him until he could no longer tell which bits of him were ordinary and which not-quite-so-ordinary. He became despondent, longing for someone to tell him the cracks were real - let alone how to rid himself of them.
No part of him was unaffected, but the part most affected was his speech. The deep magic of words with which he was familiar as a child bubbled through his cracks and sparked with power. But he knew not how to channel it, for his not-quite-so-ordinary nature drove him far from society and any master who might know how to shape him.
And so, the cracks of bubbling power condensed once more into a great sickness. But unlike the last time, no doctor could figure out what was the matter. The no-longer-ordinary boy tried everything but nothing seemed to help. All the while the crack grew and grew until he felt as if he were two boys at once, held together by only the faintest of threads.
Until the day the cracks began to squirm. At first their motion was imperceptible โ โperhaps,โ he thought โit was something strange I have eatenโ โ so he dismissed it. But the motion grew and grew until he could deny it no longer. Something was happening within him he could not quite control. It felt as though the cracks between the ordinary and the not-quite-so-ordinary were at once writhing and calcifying. As if there were some great golden latticework within him both stiff and organic, rigid and swift.
As the lattice of cracks twisted within him the no-longer-ordinary boy grew sicker and sicker.
Nobody could see the sickness except for him. Friends would ask if he was ok and he would nod, unable to even speak, for had no words yet for the strange happenings within him. He could feel the sparks of voice and word tumble between the cracks but there they remained, unaccessible.
Once he opened his mouth and could feel bits of it emerging. Frightened, he swallowed it quickly once more. His body wrenched itself around the hooks and crannies and hinges of the golden lattice as it choked and stiffened and fought its way out of him โ as if his body were rejecting a gigantic splinter or terrible virus.
The next day he again felt it emerge. And once again he swallowed it.
The third day, again it forced itself up out of all the cracks in his self, between each cell, and lunged upward through his mouth. This time he could barely contain it. He knew he would soon lose the fight. So he spoke to the lattice and asked: "if I promise to let you out, do you promise not to harm me?"
The lattice answered, not in words, but in thought: "I cannot promise your safety, but if you do not let me out I will kill you - though that is not my desire"
So boy assented to the wishes of the lattice within him - for what else could he do? Reaching a hand down his throat into his stomach, he grasped a section of the filigree, and pulled. It was at once both soft and sharp, complex and malleable. It pierced his hands and the many edges and facets made many small cuts in his palms.
As he pulled and pulled he could feel the lattice unending itself from the hollows and crannies it had carved in his soul. Its ends uprooting first from the toes in his feet and then every end of his body. As he pulled he felt the cells and surfaces of his soul, separated for years, begin to join together once more.
At long last he tightened his grip with both hands around the sharp lattice, heaved and pulled, and drew the remainder out of himself. His body crackled with energy as the gaps between his cells slammed shut and wholeness returned to him once more.
Before him sat the lattice, breathing and shifting gently in his hands. A great chandelier โ gold, glimmering, and dripping with the blood of the struggle.
"Thank you," it sang.
"Who are you?" he answered.
โCome,โ replied the lattice as it flew shimmering into the air, โand I will show you.โ
~ fin.
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What a mirror. Thank you