“Mike, can you tell me a bedtime story?” she purrs, nuzzling my neck.

I lie on the bed, looking at the ceiling. I can’t believe we’ve only known each other for just a couple of months, and that she moved in with me three weeks ago. How could I live without her?

“What shall I tell you then, pumpkin?” I ask, still staring at the blackness of the ceiling, twirling her fresh-smelling hair around my finger.

It’s a little game we play. She sometimes asks me to tell her a story, and I put on a show.

“Oh, come oooooon! You can think something up, can’t you? Or just tell me something that’s happened in your life. I know you can, Mike. Pleeeeease?”

“Then pick a topic. Ask me about something.”

“Okaaaaay. Let me think… How about…. Have you always lived in this apartment?”

“No. I didn’t live here until I was seven.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Hmm, not far away…”

“In this same house?”

“Almost the same.”

“Mike! Why are you being so evasive? Or is this the beginning of the story?”

“Then ask me what you want to know.”

“Okay. Then… who used to live here before you?”

“The Other.”

“The other who?”

“Just, The Other. His name was Ekim.”

“Ekim. Is that an Arabic name?”

“I don’t really think so, although… well, listen first, then you can decide.”

***

Little Ekim never believed he belonged to this world. Everything here was so different. Most people used their right hand to write, and the local southpaws only slightly resembled the inhabitants of his home world. This world was more like a sorry excuse for reality. By the age of seven, Ekim’s spatial awareness was very poor. He would confuse streets with all their turns, almost as if he was constantly trying to get lost. Even the arrangement of the rooms in his own apartment seemed wrong.

Moreover, despite all the attempts to reteach him, the boy still tried to write from right to left. He silently huffed, stubbornly pulling mirrored scribbles with his left hand.

Ekim knew he was fine and that the world around him was flawed. But the people around him were convinced that there was something wrong with the boy. They even called him by the wrong name. He was absolutely certain his name was Ekim.

No wonder the child grew up anxious and withdrawn. He never had any serious health problems, and the local doctor who responded to the calls for his infrequent colds never went deep into detail. When inside the apartment, the doctor did not have to enter beyond the main hallway. He would simply write out prescriptions and schedules using any available furniture as a writing surface.

Eventually, his mother got the contact details of a “normal doctor” from her friend and took her boy to some elite clinic where they spent most of the day.

The doctor listened for a long time, while tapping on and pushing against Ekim’s belly. He frowned, called for another doctor, and together they pushed, tapped, and listened to him again. Then they sent the child for an x-ray as well as to some other doctors. In the end, they sat the child outside the door and spoke with his mother for about fifteen minutes.

She left the doctor’s office in confusion. On the way home she was very quiet. From time to time she would answer some of Ekim’s timid questions, but she kept missing the point.

When they got home, she called her friend to have a long conversation, leaving the boy sitting outside the door again.

Ekim only overheard bits and pieces of her conversation, and what he heard he didn’t understand. What he heard was that he had been suffering from the “transposition of internal organs with dextrocardia,” and that “how come these bumpkins hadn’t been able to find anything for seven years,” and that in a week, there would be a “council meeting.”

Little Ekim was scared beyond his wits.

Transposition and dextrocardia were like two evil stepsisters, like the ones he saw in the cartoon, Cinderella, who strut around and squawk in unpleasant voices. The council meeting was like the wicked stepmother from the same cartoon, declaring, “I am the most important one. You are nothing.” It was no wonder that they would have to wait for that council for a whole week.

Thinking about these three facts, Ekim’s heart began to pound and a lump formed in his throat. He realized that he had to flee this strange house to his own world immediately. He would see the gate to the right world in every store front, every mirror, and reflection, but they had all remained locked to him. From time to time, the boy would knock at them, in the hopes that one day, instead of the hard, glassy cold surface, his fingers would feel the soft warmth of his home world, and he would simply walk through the mirror – like through a door. And the next moment, he would finally see his real mother, not this panic-stricken woman who resembled his mother, yet remained a stranger. Most importantly, through those doors, the Other, who was also suffering as much as Ekim was, could return here. After all, the boy so clearly saw the reflection of pain in his eyes when he looked in the mirror...

Yet the gates never opened. Today he realized he could not wait any longer. Ekim got up from his chair and stood in front of the huge mirrored wardrobe. On the other side of the glass, the Other was standing. They were both going home… right now.

In sync, both boys stepped back until the backs of their heads were touching the wall. They froze for a moment before rushing towards the mirror. A few steps from his goal, Ekim pushed off with his left foot with all his strength. On the other side of the glass, the Other did the same, but with his right foot.

Their eyes met briefly, then both closed their eyes and held their hands forward...

“Ekim, what’s wrong with you? Did you fall? Oh my God! Why did you try to jump through the mirror? Come, show me. Are you hurt or anything? What if it had broken and you got cut? Can you imagine how many stitches you would’ve needed?”

He was silent, burying his face in his mother’s soft belly as hot tears streamed down his cheeks. This was his real world, with a normal – not mirrored – arrangement of rooms.

This was his real mom, her face subtly different from that of the other woman from the other world, like the reflection in the mirror of the face in a photo. But for Ekim, the difference was massive.

More importantly, his mother had called him by his real name, not by some “Mike”. For seven years – his whole life – he had waited for this moment, like the string of a bow drawn back to fire and then the bow had been loosed, sending the boy home. Ekim clutched at his mother’s pajamas, unable to say a word.

A few meters away from him, on the other side of the mirror, happy little Mike was crying in the same way, hiding his face in his mother’s lap...

My little mouse listens without breathing. I realize that she has already forgotten this speech was about me. The story kept her on the edge of her seat, and now the pictures flew in the dark in front of her open eyes like a film strip.

…A week later, Mike was taken to his medical appointment, where it turned out the child had no mirror arrangement of his organs and that his heart was on his left.

The next morning, the director was yelling something fierce for five minutes, his face turning crimson.

The director vividly explained in full detail how the department employees had made him look before the special guests. He promised that he would personally watch those employees refresh their knowledge of how to determine the location of a person’s internal organs alongside the first-year medical students. Then, as a final step, he would send them to a special school to learn how to tell “left” from “right” and from which side one is supposed to view an x-ray.

Having only missed one day of school due to illness, Mike returned to class… right-handed. No teacher had ever encountered such a situation in their lives. Mike’s mother, remembering the shocking appointment, decided not to pester the doctors with this question. Moreover, the child’s spatial awareness and spelling did improve.

Most importantly, Mike became open and affectionate, and now he and his mother were best friends.

Ekim continues to write some mirror doodles from right to left, and he too is happy. After all, everything is as it should be in his world. Even the few right-handers.

***

I stop on that note, making it clear that this was the end of the story.

“That was amazing! I love it when there’s a happy ending… You’re right-handed, Mike?”

“I’m ambidextrous, dear.”

“Ambi… who?”

“Ambidextrous. Someone who can do almost everything equally well with both hands.”

“Were you always ambidextrous or did you have to practice it?”

“Not always. From the age of seven, just like it happened to Ekim. He probably left behind a trace of himself in me, and in return, he took a sliver of me. I am sure that in his world, he is also ambidextrous. Or rather, ambisinistrous. And since everything is the other way around there, it’s good, ” I end, still gazing into the darkness. “Anyways, that’s that. It’s time to sleep, otherwise I won’t be able to wake you up. You are supposed to be up at 7:15, aren’t you?”

There’s no answer.

I turn to her and listen in as my little mouse sniffles with her nose buried in the pillow.

It strikes me that I told all this not so much for her, but for myself; I had never recalled this story in such detail.

My story.

And now, thanks to my girlfriend’s innocent request for a simple bedtime story, I had unexpectedly relived that period of my life. This time, I can finally turn the page of that chapter – the chapter of Ekim.

I silently kiss her temple.

Yeah, probably at 7:15.