A Reflection of Vanity

The mirror lost its luster; its gold leaf wore down except for the faint lat marks where the framer first laid down the diaphanous layers of metal. Yet the reflection was clear, not muddled nor yellowed, and when she stared at the angles of her face the lines seemed sharper through the mirror than what could be seen in real life. “How much is it?” she asked, without taking her eyes of her own through the mirror. The man’s eyebrows condensed into a scowl, a permanent expression seemingly fixed onto his face. “The mirror,” she clarified, still fixated on the golden frame draped around her own reflection.

A short sigh whistled out of his lips. “Twenty-two grand,” he replied in a low, quiet breath, almost as if he said it himself.

Fully composed, she offered, “Eighteen grand,” to which he replied with a thick laugh, spittle flying from his mouth.

“Came from an aristocratic family, something quite special about it so I hear,” he amused.

“Yes, yes I’m aware,” the woman said knowingly, “but I don’t care about its personal value,” she loosely added.

“I see,” he paused, slightly taken aback. “Twenty grand,” he offered.

“Yes, yes alright,” she said, folding her fingers over the envelope tucked into the back cover of her textured leather book, where the back pocket laced the edges of the notebook. In doing so, a page fell out, detached from the aged glue binding the book together. Like a whisper, the page traveled down to her feet, where her heels kicked it under the stand where the cash register sat. She slid a check from the pocket, writing out 20,000 before handing it to the man. After a stern nod, he paused, his hard expression slightly wavering, revealing his two eyebrows knotted into an unreadable expression.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” he said softly.

“Yes, thank you, well at least there is the inheritance,” she retorted.

“Shame, you oughtn't to spend it in one place.”

The woman’s smile faltered, and quietly, eyeing the patterned gold leaf embroidering the crystal mirror, she replied, “She left me more important things than money,” her gaze trailing her own face through the mirror, “The only shame is finding out about it so late.”

The man followed her gaze back to the mirror, craning his aged neck with difficulty. Without turning back to the woman, he softened his words, “You're mother was a kind soul. Taught me the better path on life, away from my old habits, away from…” he stumbled to find the words.

The woman interrupted “Yes, well she loved to preach but never anything of substance.” The man failed to respond, even after the mirror was strapped onto the back of the horse, even after she mounted her ride with the mirror in her possession, even after the shop descended into a small angular mount of dull mass as she rode away. He could only woefully stare from the stained glass of his antique shop.

She drew the protective wool blanket away from the mirror in her attic, the dust scintillating in the ray of light breaking through the circular window as if each particle took part in a synchronized dance. She took great pride in her own reflection; she traced the outline of her face with her gaze and took care to appreciate how the light lit small tendrils of her hair like small tongues of fire. She smiled wide, but the reflection didn’t, which she expected in part from the history she was told of the mirror, but she was still shaken with surprise. She quickly dropped her smile. “Hello” she sang, but the reflection perfectly followed her every movement as she enunciated the word. Amused, she laughed but noticed it created a deep wrinkle along her forehead so she straightened out her face and skin.

After a moment of silence stretched into a few minutes, the reflection broke away from its act. The reflection replied “I know your mother,” and warmly smiled back at the woman.

“You knew her I’m afraid, only leaving me with vague stories of your existence,” she replied. Although the woman wanted to say more, to take pride in her own efforts to find the mirror, to boast about her journey and clever thought process that led her to the antique shop, to bathe in her own achievements. But she was silenced by the reflection’s eyes penetrating through the mirror and was further interrupted by bells singing from the city square. Surprised by the time of the day, she left the reflection with a slight curtsey as a farewell, the reflection glaring at her exit.

The next day, the reflection’s appearance changed. Horns spiraling out from her head like a ram, rough and bruised with dirt and deep ochre stains. The reflection wore a velvet dress, and the boning of the corset was poking underneath the thin fabric at the waist, just like the woman being reflected. Once the reflection broke the silence, the horns drifted in unison with her head as she spoke. “You are here,” the reflection asked. She narrowed her eyes at her own reflection. Another moment passed, the silence weighing on their ears. The reflection softly asked, “I see you carry that book. That is how you have found me, no?”

At this, the woman scoffed, “Funny you say that. It seems as if I’m looking at my own self,” the woman laughed, “I have found no one but my own self poorly reflected.”

“Looks are deceiving. You must have understood that by now,” a pause, “We may share the same skin, but we are not the same,” the reflection said. The woman’s demeanor changed, uncomfortably shifting on the floor where the imprint of her dress left a shadow where the dust had settled. The wind knocked on the windowpane with a soft palm. When she did not speak, the reflection sparred her from any response, “Will I see more of you tomorrow?” The woman, with no response to give, could only stare at the horns bulging from the base of her head with disgust. Oh, how she would hate herself if horns of that size grew from the same roots as her hair. Her gaze traveled down to the eyes of the reflection: the same color as the woman’s, but slightly squinted as if the world through the mirror was too bright and too saturated compared to the darker, duller world the reflection resided in. The room reflected in the mirror created the same world, yet it was coated in a thin veil of somber shadow. How miserable, the woman thought. “Your thoughts are loud” the reflection retorted, her eyes creasing into an even narrower slit.

The woman lost focus in the reflection’s horns, and, offended by her directness, immediately lifted herself from the floor and left towards the door. Before leaving, she said to the reflection, who was still seated calmly in the mirror, “Yes, I will see you tomorrow.”

The next day, the woman was still the same, in the same cotton dresses and bulging corset and fresh skin, but the reflection’s appearance had changed further. Along with the horns, which have spiraled into more halos above her head, the reflection was robbed of her own youth. Deep wrinkles plated her eyes and folds of skin sank from the pull of gravity at her jaw bone. Although wrinkled and decorated with horns, the woman saw only herself. She was troubled by the bruising skin that bloomed underneath the reflection’s tired eyes. She was troubled that her own appearance was subject to such drastic features. Oh, how daring this reflection is, she thought. With every day the woman sat by the mirror to speak with the reflection, and with every day the reflection grew older, her horns more curly and bulbous. Angered by this attack on her own appearance, the woman was to smash the mirror, ridding herself of her anthropomorphic reflection. On the seventh day of sitting by the mirror, she grew tired of the reflection she sat before. Lifting the cricket pole that leaned against the frame of the mirror, she lifts the stick with such determination and brings the head of the mallet to the center of the fragile mirror. Instead of the mallet crashing into the mirror-like a hammer to glass, the woman tumbles inside the mirror. Standing up, she finds herself absorbed by a room very similar to her own, yet darker and duller. The colors were muted, and the direct light escaped the room and instead, a weak glow cascaded from the window. Once turning to face the mirror, now cracked into thousands of shards, she sees her reflection, who now sat in a brighter room. The reflection once weighted down with a ram-like horn and carried deep crevices in her wrinkled skin, now appeared as a young woman with no horn and skin that reflected her young age.

Banging her fists onto the broken shard of the mirror, the woman screamed at her reflection. “You deceitful woman!” she screamed into the cracking glass.

At this, the reflection hissed, “You must blame your vanity,” and with that, she left. The reflection walked out from the room, grabbing a small black book on her way out the door, and into her new world of color and light.