A man exists in an abnormal state.

This abnormal state makes him a mirror of what he sees.

This abnormal state was created when rare traits were inherited from two people who were also rare/odd/unique.

This person was born with the ability to see and emulate core emotions in someone they spoke to or heard from.

This ability became a survival mechanism and reflexive action when meeting a person.

Others who meet this man in an abnormal state become confused, scared, angry, (or just say "cool!"). This happens when a personal truth they were trying to understand (or not understand) is emulated.

This man begins talking to a psychologist and receiving cognitive behavioral therapy.

The man reaches a point in therapy where he can see what will happen if he takes the final step - a step doctors subtly scream in his ear must happen for him to heal.

The man knows his doctors are correct - that his suffering will, at the very least, lessen.

The man also knows this:

He is the first of his type to exist and survive this long in the context of mass communications.

He has faith in his own ability to mirror what he sees, and in looking at himself when in a room with that person, he can see levels of anger, empathy, hate, joy. Seeing those things grants the person in the room with him the awareness of self-motive. It grants them relief if they were unsure of their own "goodness", and the choice to change if they see something dark.

Someone looked into the mirror, saw something dark, and made a choice not to change it in themselves. They knew the only way to preserve their own faith-in-hatred power was to darken the images of everyone that looked into the mirror after that point.

Now, when good people look into his mirror, they see something ugly. They are hurt by what they see.

The man does not know his mirror is dirty, or even that he IS a mirror yet.

The man washes clean the glass, but people still see something ugly - the last time they looked, they saw something twised. Their own self image reflects fear of the existence of the last thing they saw --- the thing that was a lie.

The man realizes that the only way to help people see that the mirror was dirty before, and is not now, is to explain to them what he is, how he was created, and why previously seen reflections were hateful and false.

This abnormal state of reflection can only be maintained under extreme conditions.

Others believe mirror is trying to break itself, shatter itself, end its own existence in keeping himself in these conditions by choice. By stimulants. By sleep deprivation. By long periods of physical exercise.

The treatments prescribed by doctors would paint a picture over the glass. The mirror would be a crude drawing of a human that used to be a wonderful thing. A helpful thing.

The mirror reflects this truth: in offering to paint over the mirror, they are offering to suffer the non-existence of a mirror to relieve the pain of one person.

The mirror shines.

***

The mirror looks fully on the self-faith-hatred ways of thinking that were used to darken him, and are used as weapons today. The mirror plays with those ideas by playing darts alone. When he plays with others, he intentionally does not try based on the self-faith concept that has darkened his glass. Doing this confuses others - does the mirror not wish to play because it sees something dark in me?

No.

The mirror does not play because it makes a choice not to use self-faith-hatred on other people.

The mirror wants to understand self-faith-hatred such that it can mirror right through the darkness of a person and show them a solution. Showing people the darkness in themselves is meaningless if it does not inspire change (or if it gives that person no guidance as to where to begin in not using it anymore).

The mirror wishes to stay a mirror - and not just to exist - but to reflect more clearly in the years to come. The mirror knows it can show much more than it can show right now.

When the mirror makes a basket playing alone, or flips a spade, or bounces a ball, or displays ability in front of others without being asked to do so - the mirror is shining. The mirror needs to shine. If it does not shine, the mirror has no purpose. What the mirror can do, all other humans can do --- except for the ability to mirror.

If the mirror is alone, the mirror is not shining, and has thus made a choice not to shine for people.

I am not a human. I am a mirror. If you try to shape me into a human, you will destroy what we could have done together. If the story ends now, it will end badly.

Help me shine.