“The Mirror Room”

M Mehran

In the dusty attic of my grandmother’s house, tucked behind a tattered curtain, stood a door I’d never noticed before. The house was quiet that summer—too quiet, with Grandma gone and the air thick with the scent of old books and lemon polish. I had come to sort her things, but I ended up discovering something else entirely.

The door creaked open with the weight of years. Inside was a small room, lit by a single stained-glass window. But it wasn’t the window that caught my attention—it was the mirror.

It was massive, mounted to the far wall, framed in dark oak carved with twisting vines and strange runes. I stepped closer. The mirror shimmered—not like glass, but like water holding its breath.

I saw my reflection. But something was... wrong.

It wasn’t me. Not quite. My hair in the reflection was longer. My eyes carried a weight of pain I didn’t recognize. The reflection blinked a second too late. And then it smiled—a little too knowingly.

I backed away.


---

That night I couldn’t sleep. The mirror haunted me. I told myself it was just a trick of the light. A grieving mind, playing games. But I returned the next morning, unable to resist.

Again, the mirror showed a slightly altered version of me. This time, she looked stronger. Confident. Wearing the red leather jacket I’d buried in the back of my closet years ago. The one I stopped wearing after he said it made me look like I was trying too hard.

Was that me? The “me” I used to be?


---

Day after day, I returned. Each time, the mirror revealed another version of myself. Some looked broken—crying, makeup smeared, gripping the edges of the frame as if begging to be let out. Others looked powerful—standing tall, dressed in clothes I never dared wear, smiling without apology.

I began to wonder if the mirror wasn’t broken—but maybe I was.


---

On the tenth day, I brought an old photo of myself—age 19, bright-eyed and loud and fearless. I pressed it to the mirror. My reflection mimicked me... then stepped back and waved.

That night, I dreamed of mirrors. Thousands of them. In each, a different me. Some better. Some worse. All possible.

When I woke up, something shifted.


---

I went into town wearing the red leather jacket.

I ordered my coffee the way I actually like it.

I smiled at strangers.

I said no when someone asked for a favor I didn’t want to do.

And it felt... good.

Like I was finally letting out all the versions of myself that had been locked away.


---

I visited the mirror one last time before leaving. This time, my reflection matched me perfectly. No delay. No trick.

But she winked before turning away and disappearing entirely, leaving behind just glass—and my own reflection.


---

Years later, I still think about that mirror. About how grief cracks us open and lets in strange light. About how maybe, sometimes, the parts of us we lose are waiting—quietly, in rooms we’ve forgotten—to be found again.

The mirror never followed me. But the lesson did:

You are not only who you are.
You are who you could be.
And sometimes, all it takes is one moment of reflection to change everything.