Dark Lore Digest Prompts #52

The Honest Mirror

Every morning my reflection hesitated just a little longer

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The first hesitation lasted less than a heartbeat.

I noticed it only because I had spent sixty-eight years shaving in front of the same mirror.

My razor paused beneath my chin.

My reflection…

paused later.

Only a fraction.

Enough.

Age, I told myself. Eyes betray us long before the mind does.

I finished shaving and reached for the towel.

This time, my reflection did not.

It remained perfectly still, studying me with an expression I had never worn.

Not fear.

Not anger.

Recognition.

Then it lifted the towel.

Exactly as I had.

Exactly one heartbeat late.

I slept poorly.

The next evening, I stood before the mirror again.

I smiled.

It followed.

Almost.

But just before our expressions met, I saw it.

Regret.

As though smiling had become something it no longer believed.

“Who’s there?” I whispered.

It answered with my own voice.

“Who’s there?”

Nothing more.

For weeks, the delay grew.

A heartbeat.

Two.

Three.

Enough that I began arranging little tests.

I would scratch my ear unexpectedly.

It would hesitate.

I would blink twice.

It blinked once.

Sometimes I caught it watching me before deciding to become me.

I stopped telling people before I started. Who would believe such a thing?

So I avoided mirrors.

I shaved by touch.

I brushed my teeth staring into the sink.

I took down the hallway mirror and turned the bedroom mirror toward the wall.

For three days, I felt almost sane.

Then I saw myself reflected in the dark kitchen window.

The delay was still there.

Not behind the glass.

Behind me.

That was when I understood the mirror wasn’t the problem.

It was only the place where I could see it.

I began keeping notes.

Not about the reflection.

About myself.

Monday.

Patient.

Tuesday.

Proud.

Wednesday.

Lied.

Thursday.

Kind.

Friday.

Looked away.

I did not like how often the same words returned.

One rainy afternoon, I lost my temper with a young cashier whose mistake had cost me nothing more than a minute.

She apologized once.

Then twice more after I had already turned away.

I walked away feeling strangely justified.

That evening, the reflection refused to imitate my anger.

It looked at me the way an old friend looks at someone who has begun forgetting their own name.

It simply stood there.

Looking tired.

Heartbroken.

I raised my hand.

It didn’t.

Instead, it placed its own hand against the glass.

Slowly, it shook its head.

The next morning, I returned to the store.

The young woman looked surprised when I apologized.

Then she smiled.

A genuine smile.

That night, my reflection copied me perfectly again.

Not immediately.

But close enough that I almost wept.

The pattern continued.

Whenever I chose kindness over pride, courage over comfort, truth over convenience, the delay shortened.

On the days I betrayed myself, it widened.

Not farther away.

Simply harder to become.

Months passed.

One autumn evening, after the funeral of an old friend, I found a photograph tucked inside a book I had not opened in years.

My daughter was six.

I was kneeling beside her in the grass, both of us laughing at something already forgotten.

I remembered that day perfectly.

The kite refused the wind. She laughed every time it crashed. I remember thinking there would always be another Saturday.

The lemonade had gone warm before either of us remembered to drink it.

The way she kept asking me to stay five more minutes.

That night, I carried the photograph to the bathroom.

I smiled at the child in the picture.

Then I looked into the mirror.

My reflection looked at the photograph.

Then at me.

When it looked back…

There was a tear.

Not dramatically.

Just one tear.

I touched my own cheek.

Dry.

“What do you know?” I whispered.

It did not answer.

It only looked at me with a sadness so old I understood, at last, that it had not been waiting for me to change.

It had been waiting for me to notice I already had.

I looked older than I remembered.

Not in my face.

Somewhere deeper.

“I’m trying,” I said.

The reflection studied me for a long time.

Long enough that I realized it wasn’t searching for words.

It was searching for me.

Then, for the first time since the hesitations began, it smiled before I did.

Not a frightening smile.

A grateful one.

I found myself smiling back.

We stood there together.

Perfectly matched.

Until I turned away.

Halfway to the bedroom, I remembered something.

I had never smiled.

I hurried back.

The mirror reflected…

nothing.

The room arrived first.

Then the light.

Then…

me.

Only after several seconds did my reflection walk into view.

It looked exhausted.

It leaned both hands against the …

It looked as though it had carried someone else’s face for a lifetime.

For one terrible moment, I realized I might have been the easier life to live.

When it opened its eyes again, it was me.

Every morning it became a little harder for the mirror to tell my story honestly.

Perfectly.

As though nothing had ever happened.

I wondered how many years it had spent pretending we were still the same man.

I wondered how long it had been carrying both of us.

Every morning now, before I shave, I stand very still.

I wait.

If he follows immediately, I breathe.

If he hesitates…

I know the question is no longer whether I recognize myself.

It is whether he does.

This is why we are here:

[embed]Prompts: Three Doors to Darkness Dark Lore Digest Prompts #52medium.com

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