Anukha

There was a huge, full-length mirror in Anukha’s bedroom. She could see all of her tiny body in it, from top to bottom. She loved to watch herself, particularly when wearing her ballerina’s dress. Then her feet would pivot automatically and she would clasp her hands in a loud ovation. She would look at herself with admiration. Her world was filled with hops, turns, and spontanious heart elations, which made her keep going. It was as if tomorrow never existed. Neither did yesterday. It was only “here and now” that really seemed to matter.

At times Anukha’s parents would watch her from the sofa. They would add some words to her play. Sometimes it was a torrent of sounds, sometimes just individual notes. Initially Anukha took no interest in the background melody. However, with time she began to listen to it. She could notice that it appeared to be a kind of neverending play which would go on even if everybody seemed to remain silent. She had desired to be part of the game.

So she would repeat the words one by one, quickly realizing that their meaning was separate from the way they were pronounced. The same sentence could have an elevating power or could be also devastating and overwhelming. Compared to words a knife seemed a merely primitive and predictable tool:

– Have you seen yourself in the mirror?
– First-class manners!
– You should be proud of yourself!
– There’s no one like you.

As long as Anukha had lived in a world beyond words the mirror surface remained smooth and intact. However, when her mind began to fill up with words, they somehow wrinkled the looking-glass leaving some kind of scratch marks on it. It was due to the fact that words were carrying some emotional loads, which would explode inside her  when Anukha had decided to believe in them and accept them as true facts about herself. With time the scratches had grown to take a form of deep furrows. Anukha was not keen on looking at her mirror reflexion any more. Her initial cheerfulness and lightheartedness had been taken over by pensiveness. Her head had become to be filled with yesterday thoughts and plans of tomorrow. In the game of words she was merely a pawn too often sacrificed for the higher purpose, and moved around easily against her will. Looking at her mirror reflexion did not make her joyful and satisfied any more. The furrows have made the image barely visible and distorted. “Was it possible not to enter the game at all?”

At night she would close her eyes trying to bring back the image of a dancing ballerina. The picture under her eyelids would trigger an enormous longing for something unnamed and intact by human interpretation.

Withdrawal from the game was inevitable. Merely the ability to produce sound constituted the role of a player. However, there was a possibility not to follow generally accepted principles and make up your own rules. No one could forbid to do it. The only thing you had to do was to launch your imagination and be extremelly consistent.

Thus Anukha had returned to the starting point. Her intention was to cross over the game board in silence which does not impose anything, does not hold you down, or does not generate expectations. “How shall I find the silence? And stay within it?”

Silence had turned out to be ever-present. Before she discovered it Anukha just paid attention to everything else but the silence. It was enough just to pick it. It was enough just to focus on it. And that is what she did. In the beginning she found it between words, later between thoughts, and then whithin every conscious breath. She would also assign proper intentions to the words she aired, so they would become energy carriers, verbal transmission of emotions, and the foundation for her intended creations. Concomittantly, the words others spoke ceased to affect her, undermine her self-esteem or knock her off the board. She had realised that all of it was just the creation of her insane mind indicating the condition of the conciousness of those who utter the words, exposing their fears and belief systems. So she would let the words go and enshroud with love the very being which was present between them – still too timid to come out. The play on word had become a new game for Anukha, a game in which the main prize was discovering the truth about you.

Today Anukha opens her eyes and welcomes every moment with child-like curiosity. She knows that life is a time-space which reflects everything she believes in and pays attention to. She is also aware that words feature powerful energy for creation – both for beautiful things as well as destructive. And about all she knows that she herself had been a mirror reflexion of her own perception. Therefore she chooses life between words, far beyond the network of mass-communication. All in total freedom. All whithin the truth of her own perception.