366 Finality Finally

Today, this Story-a-Day-challenge leaps to my 366th offering. At midnight tonight the clock resets back to 1, and day 366 is just hindsight.

The god of the New Year, Janus, stares back in my mirror. One needs two faces to see past and future—two-faced, stuck in the present. The mirror can be tilted and swung, but aren't we three-dimensional creatures?

Two-faced Janus—glad yet regretful. Caution's thrown to the wind, where it belongs. Which way does it blow? Fore or aft? Or caught in some dust devil?

No, we suffer the wind that blows neither fore nor aft—but edgewise—the wind that blows through a man. Through that hole where the soul should be.

Did some temporary thrill burn that hole or did regret melt it away, like a film cell of my life story, stuck on the projector, suddenly melting by the heat of the lamp? Emulsion bleeds on the screen like opportunities squandered. A luscious moment ends up fuel for the ashes of remorse. A realization—bright enough—can burn right through it.

Janus laughs from both sides of his mouth, like the truths he tells. One is sage, the other presage. The past are bullets I outrun in the present as I escape to my future. My reflection is serious self-contemplation: What have I done last year? What will I do this year?

Inflection or deflection?

Affection or rejection?

Objection or perfection?

True affection or hubric erection?

Mine is the image o'magination, magically gazing into my minds-eye—causation and affectation. A vision not necessarily visible:

Prometheus wrestles with Epimethius, but only one loses his liver; it'll be the one who knows not what's to come.

A man becomes only the man he became. Only one second, at midnight, divides both versions. A second is too brief a time to change. Real change takes longer.

It takes a lifetime.

The end of the year is just practice. At the end of my lifetime, when the mirror only reflects one way—back—how will it reflect the man I was?

I can only offer what I've written. Over the past 366 days, I know what I've learned visiting Calliope, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia, and Urania. Perhaps I should meet the rest of them.

Thanks to L.C. Schäfer, for the original guantlet thrown down in 2023.

Thanks to Rachel Deeming for rounding the threesome--she rounded up.

Thanks to the muses:

• Calliope—epic poetry (unrhymed or otherwise)
• Clio—history (revisionist or otherwise)
• Melpomene—tragedy (depending on whose POV)
• Thalia—comedy (and for God having a sense of humor)

and

• Urania—astronomy, astrology, and space (including the particles that pop in and out, virtually)

Now if I could just get Mneme to meet me halfway.

NOW WHAT?

I won't guarantee a story every day, although I have one already written for tomorrow, so who knows? In any event, I plan to continue with (at least) frequent microfictions. I think completing the 2024 Challenge allows me to abandon the 366-word limit, but they'll still be micro.

I do, however, guarantee that they will take readers places they didn't expect. And remember, puns are like magic: if you don't believe in 'em, they're no fun at all, and where's the fun in that?!