Contest Entries

Mirror

Entry for #ThePowerWithin contest by TeenFiction

Prompt chosen: the first one

Beauty, kindness, intelligence, says my mirror. I watch as my customers pass one by one before it to the counter, where I give them their change. I see something different. Fear, worry, exhaustion.

Have you ever asked it?

He's smart, the mirror's right. No one else has asked this.

No.

Why not? 

I don't answer.

The mirror will be silent if I stare into its depths. And what it will see? Sorrow.

But I am curious. I wonder. And when the shadows stretch to the horizon and I lock the shop's door, I stop. I covered the mirror with a sheet before going by it to clean up.

I grab a fistful of the white cloth, stare at the bunched fabric in my hand. Then I whip it away.

The mirror looks normal. I see myself staring out at me, and when I move, it moves.

Sorrow, I tell it. My reflected lips move, but they say something else.

Joy.

The next day as I close the shop, I leave a ragged scarf I haven't managed to sell on the step at the back door. It's been chewed at by mice and moths. I don't remove the untouched lengths of cloth from their racks.

I uncover the mirror again, regard my reflection.

Selfish.

No. Generous.

I hear an exclamation of joy from behind the store. I know that if I go look, the scarf will be gone.

A week later and I have not had the courage to look into the mirror since it told me I was generous. But today, I take a deep breath, and remove the sheet.

Unkind. Heartless. Ungrateful, depressed, unwanted! I say.

Memories flood my mind. A girl with a torn, dirty dress clutching an apple and grinning up at me. An old friend, thanking me for the blanket when she stayed with me after her husband beat her. An aged man feeding half the sandwich I'd given him to the dog that was always at his side, keeping guard while he slept on a park bench. More and more, not stopping, not slowing, and salty tears are dripping from my chin and I'm begging for it to stop because I can't believe that this part of me exists under all the darkness.

No, the mirror tells me. Good.

And I finally believe.