He sat before the mirror. He always seemed to be sitting there nowadays. Did he ever stand up? Did he ever walk? Could he walk? Once, he had enjoyed walking. And walking. His legs had been so strong. The strongest part of him. Stronger, certainly, than his resolve. His legs had never let him down. He would walk. And walk.

Briskly, as if he always had to be somewhere very soon.

Steadily, as if nothing would stop him.

Did anything ever stop him? His resolve, he seemed to recall, motored him well. It got him to wherever he determined to go. Saw him over high hurdles in his way. Pushed him to face challenges, no matter how daunting.

So why did his resolve fail when he needed it most, he wondered? Why did it not help him get away from himself, in addition to getting himself to wherever he wanted to go?

Himself? What was that? The memory that had flickered to life, igniting old pride, rekindling late regrets, ebbed away. Instead, he wondered again - did he ever stand up? He must stand up, now and then, surely? He could not sit the rest of his life away. Not even if the end came about tomorrow, as he so fervently prayed when he remembered to do so, and how.

He stood up to go to eat, surely? He did eat, did he not, even if he could not recall what it was that he had last eaten? He did not actually go, no, he knew that. He was helped to the table, with gentle reassurance, sometimes with the sharp words of the overworked. They were not all the same, were they? They called it a home, but it could not be like home, could it?

Home... His mind went blank. Then shook, as if with some blinding pain. The pain grew, as he tried to force himself to remember. Home... What had home been like? What? His face lit up. He remembered the warmth of it, the feeling that if there could be a corner of paradise, it was where his home lay. The pain returned. Home had not remained a corner of paradise.

The pain throbbed in his temples. Paradise had turned into hell. How had that happened? He pushed any hint of the reason away.

Memories forced themselves across his tightly closed eyes, chasing each other. He felt they ought to scream, if they remembered themselves. He did not remember, no.

"You do remember, how can you forget?" The voice which had taken to speak to him from within him said. "You try to forget, but - can you ever?"

The pain in his temples thrashed about like an angry wave smashing against a rock. Except that, there was not much rock in him, was there? He had been a rock when motored by his resolve.

When his resolve could not drag him away from himself, from what he had made of himself and changed into, the rock that he was before had crumbled.

His mind blanked as he shut his eyes tighter.

"Go away, go away," he whispered.

"Now you want them to go away, huh?" said the voice within him. A biting, cutting, scathing voice. "Memories are what you made them. Why did you make what you now want to forget?"

The pain throbbed. He almost sobbed, but checked himself. A flash of memory reminded him of words in an old poem: The moving finger writes... He recalled it was his own finger that had written his script. His alone. How he wished he could wash it all out. But he knew that too well that, having written, all his tears could not wash out a word of it.

He blanked out, and sighed with gratitude at that. His deep subconscious told him, time does not wash out or heal all, but it makes you forget.

"No!" screamed the voice within him, jolting his very being. "No! You cannot forget. Your memory may lapse, but it will come back. You'll bring it back. There is no escape. You did not make amends. You left it too late."

And the pain returned. Except that it was not throbbing in his temples. The pain pierced his heart. He shut his eyes tighter, forcing himself not to see within himself. He had seen that so often, but not in due time. He had seen it after his resolve failed him, and it was too late.

"Too late," screamed the voice.

"Too late, too late," he whispered.

and he nodded and nodded and whispered too late and he was flooded with emptiness and his eyes shut tight saw the meaninglessness of whatever time remained to him even had he a score years left he could not turn the clock back to what it had been before he had smashed it all when the rock within him had crumbled and he could not find the resolve required not to destroy to stop not to continue to hurt her above all and step back to start again atone and he nodded and nodded and whispered too late too late and his soul was flooded with despair and his whole being trembled and shook.

Behind his tightly shut eyes, moistness crept. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he groaned and shut his eyes tighter still. He always shut his eyes as he sat and sat and sat before the mirror. He would not look into the mirror. No, he would not.

"Look, you miserable coward! Look!" screamed the voice within him, angry, beating to a pulp whatever little remained of his spirit. Whatever remained as a punishment to make sure that he would continue to feel, not become immune to pain.

"Look!" yelled the voice.

His head lolled forward permanently nowadays, but it was not that which kept him from looking into the mirror. It was his very last bit of resolve - what he had not applied to right his wrongs - the final scrap of resolve he used up to keep his wrong from staring him in the face. Now, the voice within him defeated that remnant as well.

He opened his eyes within his lolling head, and turned them up to look.

He almost screamed with the horror and disgust that hit him when he saw the face in the mirror. A face he recognised all too well. The years had taken their toll. The handsomeness was long gone.

What was left was a face etched with the ugly memories of what he had made himself. The disgust he felt for it. The shame. The desperate wish for him not to go on. He wanted to end. Now!

His legs would not obey his request to help him rise. His hands gripped the chair with a strength born of despair. He tried to rock it. To make the chair topple over. To tumble him onto the floor.

"No," a gentle voice said. "Don't, please."

He tried harder to shift the chair. Not even burning despair would bring him the particular resolve he required.

"No," said that gentle voice again. "No, why would you want to do that?"

The man let go of the chair. His eyes turned up, drawn to the mirror, wondering how it was that the intrusive voice had come from there. Again, he felt deep disgust at what he saw, the horror of him.

Then his heart skipped a beat. He squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again. What he had also seen was still there, another face in the mirror, next to his ugly self.

"Why do you want to do that?" said the gentle voice of the child in the mirror. "Why despair?"

"Who are you?" whispered the man.

"I am who I am. You know me."

"I do not... What do you know of despair?"

"I know more than enough of it in the people I try to move away from it, to bring hope to."

"You, try to move people away from despair and bring hope?" the man cried, in spite of himself peering closely at the face in the mirror, next to his own. "You are just a child!"

"That I am," said the child, smiling gently. "But I do manage to carry a rather heavy global load on my back."

The man was about to retort at that presumptuous claim. His emotions had moved from anger at himself, to anger at the impudent intrusion of the child. No words of anger came to his lips.

His eyes looked into the mirror. Not at himself: into the eyes of the smiling infant. As if, the boy was inviting him inside of him. Stroking him gently. Offering him hope.

"Who are you?" asked the man. "How can a child carry a heavy load...?"

The man's hesitant question tailed off. He tried to lift his lolling head to be able to look more fully into the mirror. He felt he knew that child, but could not remember.

To his astonishment, he was able to raise his head. The child's face in the mirror was moving away, smiling at him all the while.

"Don't go! Who are you?" whispered the man...

A woman's breezy voice startled him. "Come on, are you ready? Today you should join the others, you know, you can't always keep to yourself, you stubborn old man. There will be singing in the chapel, and it will do you good, even if you stay for just a little."

"Come," said a second woman, cheerily, "be one of the faithful. You do know this is Christmas Eve, do you not? Tomorrow, that lamb of a child will be born."

To the amazement of the two carers, the man nodded, and stood up by himself. And he was not as bent as they were used to seeing him. He smiled at them. For the first time since he had come to the home, they saw a glimmer of hope in the old man's eyes.

It was as if a huge weight he carried had been taken off him...