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Melting Into The Mirror

I can still hear the clanging of the silver rosary that hung from the rearview mirror as we drove along the dirt road. The drive was quiet as usual. My father was always silent whenever there was a body in the back and also careful not to reveal the destination until we arrived to it. He seemed to favor shaded parking spaces away from people during runs like these.

"A carnival?" I asked.

"Here, take the keys and meet me in twenty minutes," my father said. He tossed them into the air and just as I reached out to catch them I lost sight of my father amongst the crowd. I also lost the keys. They bounced off of my hands and seemed to vanish, as if an invisible force had swallowed them up. I got down on my knees and combed the patches of crab grass with my fingers, hoping I could locate them. I tried to avoid the cigarette butts, peanut shells, and popcorn that littered the parking lot but the place was so filthy my fingers continued catching the waste.

For how gross the search had been it had all been worth it. I had come to find an un-torn ticket that could gain me entrance into the carnival. I could either spend my time searching for the keys in a filthy parking lot that would lead me to a long waiting in a car with a body in the back until my father returned, or I could explore the carnival. The choice was easy, "I’ll worry about the keys later," I said to myself. As I entered through the front gates into the carnival I could hear the strange sounds of the monkey grinding the street organ coupled with the talking and laughing of townspeople all around. The smell of food and equine feces seemed to collide with one another. This was one thing I could never understand about carnivals, how anybody could think of selling carnival food amidst the stench of defecating ponies who circled over their own waste.

The sounds and smells eventually began to dim and my eyes soon caught a glimpse of the walk-through fun house I had been hearing about at school this last week. As I made my way toward the fun house entrance I noticed my father near the carnival operator’s trailer positioned nearby. I noticed a sobbing crowd full of adults and kids encircling a dead clown with ridiculously enormous blue parachute pants and over-sized, red shoes.

I knew I didn’t have much time if I was ever going to see this funhouse.

As I entered, the man guarding the door into the first room looked at me with crazy eyes and said, "Enjoy the death on dying that brings a reflection of life about loss of things." I thought his words peculiar but entered anyway. "No turning back," he shouted at me.

I entered a series of dim-lit corridors leading to a dead end where a very short man pointed me into one of three doorways. He began to sing the peculiar phrase of the man with crazy eyes over and again, guiding me into the center doorway. I took and it led me to a hall of mirrors. My first reaction was excitement, as I had always wanted to try one of these mazes! After several minutes I began to worry. I couldn’t find my way out and the minute I began to call for help I heard voices that moved, taunting me with that repetitive phrase, "Enjoy the death on dying that brings a reflection of life about loss of things." This went on for what seemed to be an eternity. I continued searching for a way out but I could never find the exit. All I kept uncovering was multiple me’s with tears streaming down my cheeks. I reached my hand to touch the reflecting teardrops and began to sob even harder. I couldn’t shake the image of a hundred me’s trapped in such a lost and tearful state.

I closed my eyes, pressing my hand firmly against the glass and felt myself melting into the mirror. A piercing, bright light blinded my eyes coupled with the sound of cracking mirrors. I felt my body shaking, becoming one again. My father’s voice began to fade in, "Wake up, it’s time to go! We have to pick up a clown at the carnival. Load the hearse…"

 Chuparrosa is a Dreaming Woman who inherited the sacred art of the ensueño (Dreaming) from the Yaqui Queen of Dreams, Heather Valencia. She has also been training and closely working with Koyote, a Toltec Man of Knowledge, integrating the art of invocation with her academic training in psychology. Chuparrosa works her dream weaving by unifying worlds and mystical visions, using her body and words to sensually integrate, rearrange, and transform.

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