Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

The drunk troll and the really wasted ogre had managed in their drunken stupor, to inform Merlin, that the celebrated, mostly bad, warty skinned, frequently living in the south west, and usually inebriated witch, Broom Gilda had crafted a mirror just like the one he wanted to make. Even though the information about the mirror she had made happened in the long almost forgotten past, they were sure she had filed away the information in her dark cave after she had made it.

Having done that, the half drunk troll and the wasted ogre passed out, so the inn keeper threw them back out in the alley.

Merlin went on a quest to find the ill-reputed witch Broom Gilda. He searched high and low and finally found her on a sun baked carroty colored sandy beach under an umbrella, in the shade, laying on a lounge, beside the Gasparian Sea. She was waving her latest model upgraded zoom broom about because she was proud of the broom. She had scrimped and saved to get that upgraded zoom broom and was so proud of it she even had taken it back to the dealer to have it fixed when there was a recall on it. Hence the reason she was waving it about showing it off.

The witch Broom Gilda was also enjoying the quiet time while taking a break from chasing Dorothy on that infamous yellow brick road. Oh she was still doing her devious scheming of how to finally put the screws to Dorothy though, and she found the plotting was a lot easier to do while being served green, foaming, home brewed, wine spritzers by a pretty good looking Greek god who had a forced smile on his face.

After thinking about it I'm sure the now drunk troll and the wasted ogre and Broom Gilda, if they ever had met, would have been good friends, what with all of them having the same taste in the finer refined refreshments and all, but that's just speculation on my part.

The pretty good looking Greek god who served Broom Gilda her green, foaming, home brewed, wine spritzers had a muscular build and even rivaled Merlin for good looks. Oh the two of them weren't in Hercules's class, but either one of them could be a close second. The Greek god had one thing going for him though, he was Broom Gilda's favorite private server. But only because he smiled a lot!

The Greek god also doubled as her personal life guard since Broom Gilda did need help when she went walking on the sandy beach after too many green, foaming, home brewed, wine spritzers. She had this habit of tripping on the sand granules and falling over into the Gasparian Sea.

Mind you, her getting a periodical good soaking was good for everyone in the kingdom in a way. By her getting a dunking she always managed to soak her latest model zoom broom, thus shorting it out so she couldn't fly off and chase Dorothy. Another plus about being grounded was it probably saved her from getting to many FUI's (flying under the influence) riding on her broom.

I just have to tell you, on one unforgettable soaking before Broom Gilda had hired the Greek god, she had the excrement scared out of her when a kraken had come up from the oceans depths and taken a fancy to her. With the Kraken having so many arms she was not enjoying the attention the Kraken was freely fancying her with. It's a good thing Neptune came to her rescue and tossed her back on the beach, even if only to save having his ocean being polluted anymore with her excrement.

That incident was almost enough to make Broom Gilda retire and build a gingerbread house like her cousin in the enchanted forest.

But the next morning after thinking about it she figured the sedentary lifestyle in a forest wasn't for her, so she changed her mind and she hired the Greek god as a life guard/server instead.

OK back to Merlin's quest. Once Merlin met Broom Gilda, he spent a long time sobering her up. Then he found he had to dance through all sorts of hoops to get the now sober Broom Gilda to give up her secrets.

Since Broom Gilda was now sober, she was devious with the hoops that she made Merlin, dance through. Poor Merlin had to resort to begging and pleading to get the formula for the mirror. His good looks helped a lot as he was doing that. At times it almost looked like he was courting Broom Gilda to get the formula. He later claimed it was the biggest con job he ever pulled.

It still took a dragon's life span to accomplish acquiring those secrets. Reluctantly Broom Gilda finally gave him the last of the information that she had been holding back from him. In the end it cost Merlin a lot of wasted time, a bull dung pile of embarrassment, and lot of plotting and lying, not to mention the loss of respect he had to endure while courting her.

Once Merlin had the formula for the mirror, and most importantly the secret spells to make the mirror, he quietly snuck out of town, thus avoiding having to put up with Broom Gilda any more. The Greek god knew what Merlin had planned and was so afraid of the consequences of Merlin leaving he begged him to cast a spell so Broom Gilda got a couple more pretty good looking Greek gods hoping that would appease her.

Merlin also had to cast a spell on the bar where the Greek god got the wine spritzers for Broom Gilda. After that there would be a never ending supply of multi colored, home brewed, wine spritzer concoctions. They had to be multi colored wine spritzers because Broom Gilda had been getting tired of the green ones and the Greek god figured the new colors should pacify her.

Once Merlin had made his getaway he started searching the entire known world, the spirit world, the other world, the circus world, with a side trip to the underworld before he managed to amass all the ingredients.

Among the ingredients were a lot of disgusting things that are too numerous to list on one scroll. So many ingredients in fact that they had to be written single spaced on an extra long scroll. The only spaces on that scroll where the flow of information on the document was interrupted was where the bleats on the sheep skin were.

Amazingly the hardest thing to acquire was the sand from a Martian beach. Back then Martian tides were recognized as being the most notorious in the universe and they gave Merlin conniption fits. Merlin had to haul water for what seemed like ages to get rid of the water. Now that was a real chore in itself and gave him a sore back he has to this day. It's also why Mars has no water.

Then he started the hard part of the process. That was the crafting of the mirror itself. Truth be told, it was an almost impossible task to make that mirror with the properties the emperor wanted and Merlin wanted the finished product to be the thing that people from all the lands would marvel at and would be recognized as his best work.

It's still debatable if it is his best work. You might remember he had something to do with a round table and also he did stick a sword in a rock, plus there were also a few other notable things to his credit. So depending on how a person judge's things the mirror might not have been his best known work.

Oh yeah. Before it slips my mind there's something you should know about that sword. Rumors were that the sword in the rock incident happened because he wasn't paying attention and had the newly made six caliber sword unsheathed and was admiring it as he walked across the courtyard. Any mother will tell you that when you have an open blade that's when you will have an accident and of course that's what happened. He tripped on his robe and as he fell he let loose with a very colorful string of cussing. A combination of some of those cuss words was a secret spell. When he hit the ground sword first, that sword slipped right into the stone and wouldn't come out.

Merlin hysterically was yelling six caliber sword, six caliber sword at the top of his voice as he frantically tried to pull the sword out of the stone. Because he had a lisp everyone thought he was calling out Excalibur, so that's what everyone called the sword after that. Anyway after failing to get it out of the stone Merlin, trying to hide his embarrassment concocted a story about a future king having to pull the sword out of the rock. That saved him from being called clumsy, a blundering idiot, and other humiliating names by all the other wizards.

Back to the mirror. Merlin spent years crafting the mirror. It indeed proved to be a demanding and challenging task. He found if he was off by one grain of sand from the Martian beach, or chanted in too high of a pitch in his voice when he cast a spell the results were usually disastrous. Before he finished, he had blown up so many labs you couldn't count them, not to mention in the fires from the exploding labs he scorched uncounted beards, mustaches, eyebrows, and we won't talk about the hair on his back. I bet if you could stand close to him today you would still smell the burnt hair.

I also bet that those exploding labs were why the mirror has that swirling smoky look in the glass.

Being bald faced for Merlin was sure hard on his ego, and it was a long time until the fair maidens in the area recognized him. In the long run that didn't matter too much because it got to be so bad in the area around his labs that the nearby villagers packed up and moved and took the maidens with them as they left. Leaving was the only option the villagers had, because they were tired of dodging so much falling debris from Merlin's exploding labs.

There were other trivial trials and failures crafting that mirror of which the most notable was destroying the tenth planet, but in the final scheme of things the undaunted Merlin slaved on. He wanted to pass his apprenticeship desperately, and being a bit on the stubborn side he worked tirelessly to accomplish that goal.

Indeed, through all the trials and tribulations Merlin went through, he persevered and finally succeeded. He finally got the mirror stabilized so it wouldn't explode unexpectedly so he was very happy. Mostly because he could now grow his beard, mustache, and eye brows back. After all, any self respecting wizard has to have those or they just don't look the part.

Then carefully saying the phrase "wax on - wax off" while he worked, he gave the mirror a good polishing.

In future years he had a fight in the high courts with the producers of the movie Karate Kid over the copy-write laws about that saying.

After the polishing he presented the mirror to the wizard Whodowiz, who was very happy to get it. He now wouldn't have to worry about the emperor always bugging him about when the mirror would be finished. Whodowiz was so appreciative, he gave Merlin a passing grade on his apprenticeship.

Talk about making Merlin's day. He was dancing around for a week and showing off his journeyman's hat and cape to anyone that would look at them. I'm sure you've seen those journeymen hats that wizards have. You know the ones I mean, with the wide brim and the long pointy top with stars and moons all over it. The cape was trimmed the same way and fluttered about nicely as he danced about. All the fair maidens of the land thought he looked pretty debonair dressed in those duds, so he never lacked for dance partners after that.

Two days after getting the mirror from Merlin, the wizard Whodowiz, with much fanfare and pageantry had the honor of presenting the mirror to the princess Hipohnormus. Of course with him presenting the mirror, Whodowiz got to claim all the accolades and bonus money in the process.

Merlin didn't really care because he soon franchised the process of making reflecting glass products to other fabricators and filled his pouch with a lot of gold coins.

The story doesn't end there though.

*************

In my hunt for knowledge about that mirror, I found a small article written in an obscure ancient Sibhaterian scandal scroll that explained that the princess Hipohnormus eventually heard rumors that it was Merlin that made the mirror instead of Whodowiz. That was a surprise to her and everyone in the land, because everyone thought Whodowiz had made it. That information came from a big mouthed court jester who thought he was funny. When not telling old, stale, not so funny jokes he was best friends with the half drunk troll and the wasted ogre and they had told him about Merlin's quest.

Hipohnormus didn't know if she should believe the jester or not. After all, he was the oddest court jester her dad had ever hired. She also didn't have confidence in anyone with curled up pointy shoes with bells on them. So she then did her own checking and ran into the half drunk troll and the wasted ogre in person. Yep, you guessed it. They met in the same alley as Merlin did when he found them. After a fun filled evening of dancing and merriment in the local tavern she finagled the story out of the two of them, at which time the innkeeper threw the drunken troll and the wasted ogre back out in the alley.

Hipohnormus now knew who had really made the mirror. The thing was, she loved the mirror so much she had to do something to reward Merlin so she whined, pouted and cried and finally got her father to make Merlin his top conjurer and defender of the land. As you can imagine that upset Whodowiz to no end because he wanted that job for himself.

Sadly, after all that rigmarole there were years of wars and upheavals and somewhere along the way that mirror disappeared. There were rumors of the mirror appearing from time to time, but it didn't make a final reappearance until one day when I was driving around and on a whim stopped at an antique shop. Something caught my eye as it twinkled in a dark corner so I went over and uncovered the article. That article turned out to be the mirror. It was like the mirror talked to me, and I just had to buy it.

I had to do a whole lot of haggling back and forth with the owner of the antique shop, with me doing lots of hand gesturing and waving of arms while doing that haggling. The reason for the hand gesturing and waving arms about was because at one time or another I had heard from someone that if a buyer did that when haggling is was supposed to lower the price, as well as be good exercise. So I did lots of that trying to save dipping too deeply into my wallet.

In the end I did manage to get the mirror at a bargain basement price and felt good about the purchase. That happiness lasted until I got home and the wife saw what I dragged into the house. You've already heard about what the wife thought of my purchase, so you know why it was in the garage sale.

It also proves that I didn't have a clue on what the wife thought was good looking or not, so after that I never stopped at another antique shop again.

**************

Now comes the good part of the story.

One day a couple of months after our garage sale Belinda told me that everyone that visited her thought the mirror was real neat. That comment came after she complemented me on my changed looks with the new glasses I got because of the damage to my eyes from my search in the library. One comment she had was a lot of her friends spent a lot of time in front of that mirror. Hearing that I was sure one of them might have noticed those magical properties it had. I couldn't believe it when I asked Belinda if she saw anything in the reflection that was out of place and she told me she hadn't noticed anything. That was really puzzling for me because after all my reading and learning about that mirror I was sure they must have been blind not to have noticed the magical properties of the mirror. But then again in all the years the wife and I had the mirror we never noticed anything different about it except that a lot of our friends liked it.

Puzzled I went back to the sheep skinned scrolls and did some more reading.

I almost missed it but there it was right in the middle of one of those bleats. I read that Merlin had indeed instilled in the mirror some little known and mysterious magical properties. When Merlin had heard the mirror was for Hipohnormus, he crafted that mirror just as per the emperor's instructions, but he added some extra magical properties to it. Those unusual properties are, NO MATER WHO IT IS, AND HOW THEY APPEAR TO THE WORLD, THE MIRROR WILL ONLY SHOW ATTRACTIVE REFLECTIONS to the people that stand in front of it.

For people that are already good looking it shows a true reflection. I guess that's why my wife and I, as well as Belinda never noticed anything funny about the mirror. It's kind of a confidence builder knowing you are good looking and something like that mirror doesn't have to lie to you. That's also why those same magical properties made Hipohnormus very pleased and she used to stand in front of that mirror for hours on end.

So now we know why our friends, and now a lot of Belinda's friends, liked to stand in front of that mirror and admire themselves.

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