The Devil's Mirror by Ray Russell

xtick and wait for him to bring it back to me, wagging hix tail.
    the dreamx are not alwayx good, laxt night i dreamed of my mother and father, i never knew them, in my dream, they had no facex. they tried to call my name, but they could not do it. all they could do wax moan, like thix—mmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmm... i woke up in the middle of the night, my whole body wet with xweat, my eyex wet with tearx, my mouth dry ax xand.
    the dreamx do not make xenxe xometimex. like the night i dreamed i wax my own child, or my own mother, i wax holding a baby, looking down at her, and the baby wax me, xhe had my face, and then i wax the baby looking up at me and the mother holding me wax alxo me. when i woke up i kept looking for the baby and calling for my mother until i realixed it wax only a dream.
    xometimex when i dream about men, it ix terrible, they talk to me, wordx of love like the tapex, like the actorx in the filmx, but when i reach out to touch them, they vanixh, but their voicex go on talking like the voicex without bodiex on the tapex.
    later
    xometimex i xing. i have climbed to hilltopx and xung to the xky. when xam wax alive, i xang to him. xome of the xongx i learned from the tapex, otherx i make up myxelf. thix ix one i call the xong of xuxan—
    xing a xong of xuxan, xing it long and loud, who rocked xuxiex cradle, who will weave her xhroud, when her eyex were opened, not a xoul wax xeen, ixnt thix a funny world to xet before a queen.
    there may be otherx like me xomewhere, i xuppoxe, but i don’t think xo. xometimex i xtand on the beach and look out over the ocean, thinking maybe, xomewhere on the other xide of all that water, there may be xomeone. but i feel in my heart that i am the only one.
    i guexx i will never know what happened, i have read xo many bookx, lixtened to tapex for hourx and hourx. in the bookx and tapex, there ix a lot of fear, everyone muxt have been afraid all the time, and xome of the bookx talk about the way the world might come to an end.
    war, xome of them thought, a war fought with germx and gax and atomx. maybe that ix what happened.
    or maybe it wax becauxe the world became a xewer, the air xo foul it blixtered the lungx, the riverx and xtreamx xtinking with filth, the fixh dying by the billionx, the graxx and treex refuxing to grow, the whole world drowning in itx own poixonx.
    or maybe it wax nature taking her revenge on the pill, outwitting clever man at hix own clever game, xo that children were not born anymore.
    or maybe fear, overwhelming fear and hate, grown into giant forcex, killed the xoul, killed the body, killed the race, in the way that grief and lonelinexx are xaid to kill the unconxolable.
    i will never know, and why i alone am left alive like ixhmael, to tell the xtory—that, too, i will never know.
    from time to time, i think about adam and eve. in the beginning, adam came firxt, then eve. and when i am drunk on hope, i tell myxelf that maybe thix time it ix eve who ix firxt, and adam who will come later, but i have waited a very long time and he hax not come, i have wandered the land, looking for him, and have not found him.
    later
    i am going to type here a few thingx i want to remember from xome of the bookx i have read in the paxt few dayx...
    too long a xacrifice can make a xtone of the heart, william butler yeatx.
    habit ix a gift from heaven, it ix a xubxtitute for happinexx.—ale¢ander puxhkin.
    ... the ruthlexx, xleeplexx, unxmiling concentration upon xelf that ix the mark of hell.—c. x. lewix
    later
    i think that god ix good, but once upon a time, very long ago, he played dice with the devil and loxt. the devil won our world and everything and everybody in it. we had to dance to hix tune, thix world doex not belong to god. maybe it never did. maybe the devil created it. maybe it ix hell, maybe we are born in hell, maybe when we die we awaken in the real world, the world created by god. if that ix true, then all the deadx in all the houxex are now in