"Just show it to me!" Jake grabs my hand and points into the lake that we've eaten our lunch beside for years. In primary school we sat on the other side and threw rocks into it and watched fish swim and imagined what it would be like to swim as elegantly and as free as they do, water gliding over our bodies. Now we sat around it and talked about why mine was the only face that ever looked back at them from its shiny surface.
"How can you still find it so interesting Jake! It's just my face. You're looking at it right now." I don't know why I felt so protective of my reflection now. The rarer it became the less I wanted anyone else to see it.
"Come on Jess. Please? I haven't had mine for more then a year. I share everything with you!" Jake pouted at me knowing it would work. It always did.
"Sharing your muesli bars at lunch is hardly the same thing." He was always so dramatic. I leaned over, my heart in my throat, and looked into the water, scared that today would be the day that I stared at the bottom instead of my tangled red hair and green eyes dancing on the surface. But there I was, as always.
Jake leaned over and stared at my reflection with curiosity and amazement, this never got old to him.
"Happy?" I rolled my eyes for affect. I wasn't half as irritated as I was pretending to be, but I did want half of his home made muesli bar and I knew my best chance was to play it up.
"It's beautiful. Who would have thought that red heads would be the only ones left with souls." He was joking, but still.
"You're such an idiot. You know that plenty of people still have there reflections with all types of skin and hair colour. Plus, not having a reflection doesn't mean you don't have a soul! Well you mightn't, but everyone else does." I stood up angrily, the crumbs from my lunch scattering all over the ground and onto Jake's lap.
"I can't believe I made it onto the soulless list and your parents didn't, but as a peace offering you can have this." He threw his muesli bar at me untouched and I caught it happily. 8 years of friendship had taught him a thing or two about diffusing me.
"Come on, we have ethics and Mr Traven will kill us both of we're late again."
"What is a reflection?" Mr Traven's voice filled not only the room but seemed to echo threw my head in a particularly obnoxious way. A couple of hands shot up, but he ignored them and continued. "It has no real use, none that is of actual use to human beings as a whole, but in fact has a negative effect." His eyes scanned the room for affect. "Statistics show that since reflection numbers have dwindled so to has eating disorders, self harm, scuicides, bullying inspired by physical defects, and vanity. This new age that we have been born into is one where we can see our fellow human beings for what is under the skin more then the surface, and can in turn show that same kindness to our self. In fact, I disagree entirely with the proposal that those of us without a reflection lack some essential part of us and instead propose that we have been rewarded on some level by being saved from our own selfish vanity. This new age should be considered a gift and not a curse or something to be afraid of." I could feel his eyes burning into me as he finished his rant. "It should be those of you that still have a reflection who should be feared."
