For sale: mirror, looked at once

Info

crit and greenlit by the goat, dare I say swagmaster DivineAtlas

around 750 words

Self-explanatory. I am selling a mirror.

The price can be negotiated. It was a gift from friends who thought it'd be good to see my own reflection after years of not seeing myself. They meant well, but it's not exactly like I needed that. Not sure why they thought this would be a good gift, to be totally truthful.

I mean, it's a mirror. It works. It reflects things. I suppose it could be useful to someone around here.

It's just that something happened with it and it freaked me out. You see, despite my friends telling me to take a hard look at myself in the mirror, I never did for years. It collected dust in a corner of my office, and… I never bothered with it. Didn't even say "thank you", just made an awkward smile, and that was that. I guess it was it for my friends as well, who haven't visited me in months now, but that's besides the point. Anyway, at some point, while I was working on a particularly frustrating problem plaguing Omega, I decided it was time to meditate and, you know, I saw it. I saw the mirror, and I thought about this whole "reflection" thing. Maybe I was just so deep into work that I had forgotten to give some time for myself, you know? I needed a break, it seemed so.

I closed my office's blinds down, turned on the light, took the time to set a carpet on the floor, put the mirror on the floor and sat down. Without looking at the mirror directly, I closed my eyes and thought to myself, "You are going to slowly open your eyes… And when your eyes will be open, you will see yourself with a bright smile, and you'll feel better. Everything will be okay."

While my eyes were closed, I truly felt some form of serenity. For once, the weight of all the workload I had inflicted upon myself was removed from my shoulders and it was… It was just nice. I could feel a smile mounting up on my face, some form of quietude in my mind that I could have never imagined. I was ready to open my eyes, ready to see a new man in my reflection.

Instead, a woman's warm and playful grin greeted me. I jumped off, naturally. She remained there, still, looking at me and not saying a word. Paranoia is the first sentiment that jumped to my mind: who is messing with me, this time? Was it a joke, a sick prank? Yet, it was clear that there was not a single shred of malice in her kind eyes, all that there was to find was pure joy. So, the next thing I thought of was to approach her, and she followed suit.

We both approached, and I can now safely say that the room she was in seemed familiar, its layout strangely similar to my childhood bedroom. This was only an afterthought, however, as was I instead fascinated by the resemblance we both bare: our wavy hair, our green eyes, our thin nose… The sole difference was that she was blossoming, thriving. What had happened to me, I then thought? I failed to hold back my tears, then her hand reached through the mirror and caressed my cheek. I responded in kind, and when my hand pierced through the glassy surface, there was a sense of comfort I hadn't felt in decades. We stayed in that position for… I don't know how long. I couldn't help myself but feel both appeasement and yearning, a desire for what she had and what I missed, all because of one single misstep into this cacophonous horror, why was it me that ended up in this nightmare?!

And right at that moment, I heard a voice I couldn't mistake.

"Jeanne, à table chérie !" My mother's voice rang from below her reality. Right at that moment, I immediately removed my hand, and slammed the mirror on the ground. The last thing I saw of her was a shocked expression. After that, I just went for a coffee, and then here I was, back to work. The coffee was lukewarm and bland, as usual.

Anyway, I don't need that mirror. Don't worry, I haven't broken it, so you can buy it. Or you know what, fuck it, if you want it for free, just knock at my office's door, you'll know where to find me.

Seller:
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