Only the mirror at home told her lies. Showed her what she would be when grown old.

Eyes that had died with the blindness of visions spent like late summer petals. The fruit of her womb left withered and hard on the vine; the essence of her now just an empty cauldron of a meal never tasted, grown cold and congealed. Her hair a white halo, left pure with regret.

And the shortness, the smallness, the quiet unnoticeabilty of her, a person compressed about to spring out of her soul.

Too late for her lifetime, this body. But not for this mind.