The Puddle That Echoed Back
When the rain refused to fall in predictable patterns, a single street in the old quarter became both sanctuary and snare. I walked it under a tired umbrella, counting the seconds between lightning and the distant barking of a dog that sounded older than the town. The first puddle looked like a quiet mouth, a harmless glass that reflected the gray world above. But the moment I leaned closer, something else leaned back.
The reflection did not copy me. It teased me, bending the edge between water and air until the boundary felt like a fragile compromise. In that surface I did not see my own eyes but a younger version of myself, eyes hungry for a dream I had buried long ago. The name I spoke to greet an old friend drifted away in tiny ripples, only to return with a cold breath and a breathless chill that touched my skin.
“Look again,” whispered the surface, and the whisper was not mine. It carried the weight of nights I pretended to sleep, the things I never dared tell anyone. When I blinked, the figure in the water did not blink—its gaze followed mine with a patient intent that felt almost predatory.
Across the street, another puddle offered a different confession. In its depth I met a person I used to be—or someone I might become if I ceased listening to the living. The reflection showed footsteps that led toward a door that was not there, a doorway into a cellar of regrets that never fully closed. Every ripple clung to a syllable I spoke—every syllable returned with a colder weight that pressed against my chest.
What the puddles reveal
- The eyes in the water belong to a memory that learned your cadence and waits for you to falter.
- Reflections do not merely mirror the present; they alias the future with the evidence of a choice you never imagined would matter.
- Occasionally the water answers with your own voice, but it speaks in a vocabulary that feels years older and less forgiving.
The night ends with a distant thunderclap and a whisper that lingers like rain on glass: some mirrors were never meant to be stepped into. If you listen long enough, the puddles tell you what you already know—time is a circle, and the past is patient. It learned your name and your footsteps, and it remains awake, waiting to echo you again the next time the rain comes.