Mirror Mirror

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, why do you make me so distorted and all?” She tilts her head, questioning an inanimate object. She believes herself to be in a fantasy; one with a witch and dwarves. Fortunately, the mirror doesn’t need to talk to let her know that she isn’t the most beautiful in the land, she can easily figure that herself.

Her face folds multiple times. She has nothing sharp about her. Her eyes are off center with one closer to her nose than the other. Her hair is thin. Her body wrinkled. Such a heinous sight. She pities those that lay eyes on her.

The mirror doesn’t lie, she tells herself, even a mirror in such a peculiar place as this. Questions flood her mind, and she asks: “Why is this mirror over here? Why in the middle of the woods? Why on the base of a cliff so steep? Why hidden from the world?” Perhaps it was too dangerous a tool, as most items that tell the truth are. Perhaps someone as ugly as she had found it, and hid it here. Perhaps she had hid it here, but doesn’t remember.

After all, she had been coming here since she was a little girl, staring at her reflection. At the age of seven she tried asking the question, expecting to experience what the witch had. She wanted the mirror to tell her she was ugly. She wanted to be told that her looks were worthless. She wanted anything... anything but the silence it gave.

She hates being here. She hates being called disgusting. She hates being called disgusting by something that can’t call her anything. The issue is that it isn’t as simple as just turning away from the mirror. The mirror follows her everywhere, it surrounds her. It’s everywhere she looks, and it’s so enticing that even if she got far enough away, she’d only come back to it.

She expressed her anger by crying. She expressed it by talking. She expressed it by all means possible, yet the mirror stood impervious, mocking her. If only there was a way to get rid of this monstrosity that picked her apart all day.

An idea floats it’s merry way into her head; she’d break it. The smile she cracked that day was like no other. She prepares and spits at it, a farewell of sorts. Then a rain of punches. Sweat trickles down from her brow from frustration. She screams and repeatedly smashes her hands into it, yet no shards shoot out in defense. She strikes at the mirror. She slashes her nails across it and doesn’t make a scratch.

Horrified, she backs away and turns around, only to see her ugly reflection. She shrieks. Her senses dull. The world moves around her frozen body. She covers her eyes with her hands. Hiding her tears, in her trembling voice she chants, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, you’re not a mirror after all.” She runs away from the river as the tears and sweat fuse with the water on her soaked body.