The Barber’s Mirror

🪞 The Barber’s Mirror

When the Mirror Stares Back, Run.

By Asif Nawaz

In the small town of Aladand, where the call to prayer echoed louder than gossip and the streets turned to fog by sundown, there stood an old barbershop with no name.

Locals called it “Yasir’s Place,” though Yasir never put up a sign. He didn’t need one. Everyone in Aladand knew him — or thought they did. He was quiet, polite, precise with his blades, and strangely ageless. Some said he had been there since before the bridge was built. Others said they remembered his father cutting hair in the same chair.

But no one remembered seeing Yasir outside the shop. Not at the mosque. Not in the market. Not even at funerals — and Aladand had plenty of those lately.

⸻

The First Blink

It was Ali Rehman, the school principal, who first mentioned the mirror.

He had sat in Yasir’s chair one foggy Thursday. The cut was sharp, the shave close. But something was off. Ali had sworn that when he looked into the large oval mirror, his reflection blinked a second too late. A delay so small it could be explained away — maybe he was tired, maybe it was the lighting. But when he turned to speak, Yasir was staring directly into the mirror, lips moving in silence.

“Everything alright?” Ali had asked.

Yasir nodded, but his eyes never left the glass.

“You blinked,” he whispered. “Before your reflection did.”

Ali laughed. Nervously. And never came back.

⸻

Whispers and Vanishings

Over the following weeks, three townspeople vanished.

No bodies. No signs of struggle. Just… gone.

One of them, Rehan the bakery assistant, had been last seen walking into Yasir’s shop for a cleanup before Eid.

Yasir was questioned, of course. Gently. Respectfully. The police respected him — even feared him a little. Nothing was found. No evidence, no motive, no trace. Just a very clean shop, and a barber who seemed colder each day.

What unsettled people most wasn’t what was missing — it was what remained. In each case, the person’s reflection in the shop’s mirror was the last place they were seen.

⸻

The Back Room

The mirror itself was a relic — thick, old wood frame, slightly curved surface. It had belonged to Yasir’s father, and his father before him. Generations of cuts and secrets, all in the glass.

One rainy evening, Yasir stood alone in the shop after closing. He lit a candle instead of switching on the overhead bulb. The dim flicker cast long shadows — including one that didn’t match his own.

He turned sharply. Nothing behind him.

But in the mirror — there it was. A second Yasir, watching from inside the glass. Its smile was thinner. Eyes darker. A mockery of his humanity.

It didn’t blink.

⸻

The Stranger in the Chair

One fog-soaked night, a stranger entered the shop. He wore a black coat, damp from the rain. Yasir said nothing, only gestured to the chair.

The man sat.

“I heard your mirror tells the truth,” the man said.

Yasir’s hand paused mid-reach. “It reflects what people ignore.”

“And what do you see?”

Yasir met the man’s eyes through the mirror. “Someone who isn’t really here.”

The mirror fogged slightly. The stranger’s face blurred at the edges. Yasir raised the razor slowly — not to shave, but to slice away the silence.

“Do you believe in echoes?” he asked.

The stranger tilted his head. “Echoes of what?”

Yasir pressed the blade against the man’s neck.

“Of who you were. Before the mirror started watching.”

The stranger smiled. But his reflection — it didn’t.

⸻

When the Mirror Stares Back

The next morning, the shop was open as usual. Yasir, in his apron, sharpening his blades with rhythmic strokes.

But those who entered noticed something.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. His replies were too perfect. And when he blinked, the mirror followed — not in sync, but in command.

Some say Yasir never left the shop again.

Others claim he’s not really Yasir anymore.

If you sit in that chair, they warn you not to look directly into the mirror. Because the reflection might do something unexpected — blink too early, smile too wide, or not blink at all.

And if it does?

Run.