He was armed with his mask and his mirror. He was cloaked in finery. He flipped on the thesaurus in his head and readied his rhymes. He stepped up, stepped over, stepped into the arena, expecting his mark; today’s woman that he had marked. He was surprised that she was not alone but his false front held, and he wove a stratum of confident amusement over himself. 

He advanced. The spotlight shone on a figure and splashed on either side, half-revealing her companions. A fourth woman made him halt when she stepped out of the black, eclipsing the first woman from his view. He lifted his mirror as a weapon and as a shield. For the briefest of moments, she was revealed, naked. She conceded with a smile and a curtsy which ended with a flourish of arms arcing from the earth to the heavens, enclosing, not confining, her into her clothing. 

The man was perplexed. He fell back on his designs and sang his poetry of what he wanted her to believe her desires should be. But another woman and yet another and a multitude of women emerged from the dark, one in front of the other, braving the light and the twisted images in his glass. They forced him back but there was no door. 

“I am not afraid,” said today’s mark. The sisters and maidens and matrons strolled and strode around the arena, crossing their paths as their lives might have crossed or touched. They established a circle with the man in the middle but not in the center, and with the mark at the edge. 

The woman was stripped and exposed by her choice and not by his design. The man tightened his grip on his handle, the mirror, and cast the curtains of his cloaks aside. The projection of a projected phallus was on stage. He aimed the mirror. 

The woman who would not be a mark raised her arm and summoned the mirror from his hand into hers. With a gesture, she crafted one with its likeness, but with a glass that was true. She passed the good mirror to the woman on her left, who replicated it and passed it, replicated and passed it, replicated and passed it until the circle was replete. 

The woman casually tossed the corrupt, corrupted, corrupting mirror out of the reach of the man, and it silently vanished into the shadows. She turned her back to the middle and joined the circle, where she was provided the grandest of sports bras and yoga pants. 

As she moved out of the spotlight, the light moved to the middle. The man loved the spotlight but not the light. He was indignant as they disregarded him, giggling or sighing or crying or beaming into their mirrors. They held them out to show and share as if their images remained in the glass for the others to see. A soft, soothed, steadfast glow surrounded them. 

The man’s voice cracked when he shouted, “Regard me!” They did. 

The light above him harshened and he was uncloaked. His finery faded and raiment revealed. He exhibited a t-shirt touting an obscure band, knee-length shorts and whitish ankle socks. His mask remained, as did an erect penis. He stood erect with his fists on his hips. 

They pointed their mirrors to the middle. 

He saw himself. His mask screamed before he did as it dissolved onto the floor; the floor of the arena. His face was not interesting. His dreams of metaphors faded from his thoughts like similes in the wind. All of his rhymes, not worth a dime.  

They stepped closer. 

He yanked on his boner as it got smaller. 

They stepped closer. 

He yanked on his boner as he got smaller. He knew as truth that if he could fling his seed he would dominate the lot of them. 

They stepped closer. 

He yanked on his soft penis. There would be no seed today.

One more step. 

He pissed himself and made himself smaller. 

Doors opened and sunlight poured in, strangely not reaching the middle. The women went about their lives. Some of them went home. Some went for wine, some for coffee or tea. Some went in search of good poetry.