The Ugly Girl
This girl of fifteen, people said was ugly.
At home she didn’t have a mirror because
her parents thought she would lose heart
seeing her face so ugly. She liked to be alone
with herself, often swinging her legs in the
clear water and playing with the floating
blooming waterlilies in the nearby pond,
but didn’t ever venture to go in the deeper
waters for she didn’t know how to swim.
One full moon night when the shining water
was calm, she saw the pond turn into a mirror,
reflecting her ugly face onto her shocked eyes.
She decided not to look in the water mirror again,
but make a special mirror of her own that would
show her a beautiful face. This she did earnestly
polishing a steel plate with stems of waterlily.
In the magic mirror she saw her smiling face
as beautiful as the flower. She then told people
her mirror could turn all faces into lovely flowers.
People said she had become insane.
This made her inordinately sad more than ever,
but found consoling refuge and joy in her image
she saw in the magic mirror, smiling like waterlily.
In the gleaming twilight hours of one spring
when the pond water was rippling the hues
of the setting sun she was plucking the waterlilies,
her magic mirror she carried always with her,
slipped from her unwary hand, and as it sank
and disappeared in the deep waters she plunged
on an impulse in the pond, and for the last time
saw her smiling face lying beside her magic mirror.
On her sixteenth birthday people found the pond
covered with blooming waterlily they said beautiful,
and the unique story of the ugly girl would unfold.
_________________
September 21, 2022
Contest : Chapter 1
Sponsored by : Matt Caliri
Copyright © Subimal Sinha-Roy | Year Posted 2022
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