Let’s all have a laugh at humanity, while we still have a sense of humor about us. It’s getting dark out there, my friends, where we make what we call our livings, but here in the room, where our private movies are staged and we are stars, it’s blindingly brightly lighted by design, mirrored and multiply-reflected, white on pink on stark white sheets and shadows flee before us. Still. We’re funny. Could we be naked and not be funny? Seen in our entirety, with back-story and motives, we’re charming and slightly ridiculous. Our mismatched genes, those cross-wired brains, these farcical downward story arcs make us sympathetic supporting characters if not small heroes, certainly not villains, but from an individual angle, directly overhead from a distance of, say, here to the mirror on the ceiling, we look exactly like the funny animals we are, pink and poignant, poking one another. In the mirror to the side of the bed, I catch a glimpse of a creature that has no business in my fantasy. He’s not at all how I pictured myself just now with my eyes closed playing for romance and yet, he’s doing exactly what I think I’m doing to this gorgeous reflection of you, and yes, you look indisputably fantastic, identical and fine, here and in the mirror, so who’s that stand-in with my haircut, doing such an unconvincing impression of me? Tomorrow we take down all this diminishing glass. We’ll do what we’ve always done. My eyes will be your only mirror, yours mine. We’ll look at each other and find ourselves. And just before we start to laugh, we’ll catch a glimmer of how we’re loved and get a sense of why. Then when we laugh, we’ll laugh until we cry like no animal we know.

Copyright © March 24, 2007 David Hodges