The Mirror of Forgetting

The first time Elara touched the mirror, it whispered her name.

It was tucked in the attic of her grandmother’s house, behind dusty trunks and shelves stacked with books too brittle to open. The frame was carved with roses and vines, and the glass shimmered like moonlight on still water. She had gone up looking for her childhood sketchbooks. She found something far stranger.

When she touched it, the room went silent—truly silent. No creak of old beams. No hum of wind outside. Just her, the mirror, and a sudden emptiness behind her eyes.

Then it spoke—not aloud, but deep within her thoughts.

"One memory. One gift."

She pulled her hand away. But something inside her stirred. She had too many memories. Some were too heavy.

So, she asked, quietly, “What kind of gift?”

"Peace," the mirror said.

At first, Elara didn’t believe it. But that night, as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling of her grandmother’s guest room, a memory rose in her mind like a ghost.

It was her tenth birthday. Her mother had forgotten the cake. Her father had whispered too harshly. She had cried in the closet so no one would hear.

The next day, that memory was gone.

Not faded. Not softened. Gone.

She knew she had cried, once. But she couldn’t feel it anymore. She couldn't see the closet. Couldn’t recall the sting in her chest.

In its place was... stillness.

Over the next few weeks, Elara visited the mirror again.

She gave it the memory of her first heartbreak—Theo, who left without explanation.

She gave it the memory of her last day at school, where teachers cried and no one said goodbye to her.

She gave it the memory of standing alone at her mother’s funeral, holding a wilted lily, unable to cry.

Each time, the mirror took the pain. Each time, it left behind quiet.

Her journal filled with sketches again. She smiled more. She remembered how to laugh.

Her grandmother noticed. “You seem lighter, Elara,” she said. “Like someone pulled out the splinters.”

Elara nodded. But she didn’t speak of the mirror.

Some secrets are too strange to share.

But memory is a thread. And you can't keep pulling it without unravelling something deeper.

One day, Elara tried to draw her mother’s face. She couldn’t remember the curve of her smile. Her laugh. The way she used to braid Elara’s hair.

She searched for old photographs. She held them in her hands, but they felt like strangers.

When she returned to the mirror, it said nothing.

She touched the glass.

“Give me nothing,” it said. “You have given too much.”

She cried out, “No, I want them back!”

But the mirror did not return what it had taken.

Days passed.

Elara stopped eating. She stared at photo albums, willing herself to remember. The more she tried, the more the emptiness inside her grew.

She had traded sadness for peace—but at the cost of meaning.

Pain, she realized, had tied her to people. To places. Without it, she floated.

She returned to the attic, hands shaking.

“Please,” she begged the mirror. “I want my memories. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones. They made me who I am.”

The mirror shimmered.

“One gift. One memory.”

“I don’t want a gift,” she said. “I want to remember.”

Then, something changed.

The mirror’s glass rippled.

One memory returned.

Her mother’s hand, warm on her forehead. A lullaby. The soft scent of chamomile and rain. Just one moment—but it bloomed in her like spring.

Elara fell to her knees, sobbing.

And this time, the pain didn’t destroy her. It grounded her.

She left the attic and never returned to the mirror again.

Years later, Elara became an artist. She painted people’s memories—not the pretty ones, but the raw, real ones. Her studio walls were filled with images of sorrow and joy, held in equal reverence.

People said her paintings made them cry.

But also—made them whole.

When asked how she understood memory so well, she’d only say, “I learned the hard way that forgetting isn’t healing. Remembering is.”

And sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she still felt the mirror’s cool glass beneath her fingertips.

But she never touched it again.