It was the most beautiful thing she has ever had. It was her mother’s last gift to her. A little mirror engraved with aesthetic stones around it’s rim. Anna used to look into it thinking if she looked like the most attractive person she had ever seen, her mother. That mirror was old, but still, even today when it reflected the beauty of Anna, it itself looked bewitching. Anna, a six-year-old little girl, was afraid that if someone will find her beautiful mirror; they will break it into pieces.

It didn’t matter what was the worth of a mirror for someone it belonged to. People were violently breaking them. Today was the day when all the mirrors started reflecting the true, the inner, the uglier picture of the people. When the real faces behind the masks of sincerity, faithfulness, love, care, piousness and devotion got exposed, no one was pleased. People were gravely infuriated. Today, many relationships were broken, many hearts hurt.

Anna hid her mirror in her little bag and went outside with an idea to bury it at a safe place. While walking on the streets, she noticed the mess that was all around. People had burned the display board of the person who claimed that he will help those who had gone astray from the right path. Amidst the big liars, people once trusted, there were those too who didn’t find anything wrong with their mirrors. But they were like 1 in hundreds. Anna saw an old man crying, sitting by a devastated mirror shop. She asked him in her soft voice to tell what had happened. That old man told her that today, the best friend, the best listener, the best advisor of the town attacked his shop and destroyed everything, the good people seizing his sole source of income from him.

Soon people overwhelmed in their fierce emotions started attacking those one in hundreds. How could they still hide their true identity? Why mirrors are not showing them ugly? For those people, in this polluted world, this was impossible to be clean, so there could be a way they had discovered to hide their true identity.

Impossible to be clean, was an excuse they always had given to their conscience. It’s the way to live life happily, was the reason they used to tell themselves. It’s the way everyone does this, was their belief.

Anna while putting soil in the little hole containing her mirror thought, “Why people are afraid of themselves?” While returning back to home, she thought that she will never dig that mirror out. She was afraid that when she will grow up, and see her mirror, she could also break it like all the grown up people she saw today. For her, it was growing up that was making people ugly.

When Anna reached near that mirror shop, she met that old man again, but this time he was looking happy. He told Anna that a really good man has gifted him a new set of unbreakable mirrors and has paid all the dues for repairing his shop. There was mess, chaos all around but still there were people trying to help. The old man was inspired, having his trust on humanity restored, he told Anna that this world is full of ugly people but it is intact due to the really good ones. He advised her that though it seems impossible but try to be among the really good ones because the true happiness is one which you get when you look into a mirror and feel beautiful outside and inside.