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#225 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

From Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection to the speaking mirror in Snow White, mirror images have always been a popular motif in literature, commonly used to introduce questions of identity or self-consciousness. But they can also be used to create a split between reality and illusion: is what we see really the truth, or are our eyes — or indeed minds — playing tricks on us? Taken one step further, one might even argue that texts themselves are a reflection of their author and the world they inhabit.

This week’s prompts invite you to reflect (pardon the pun) on topics of self-image, twisted realities, and outer appearance that may or may not capture what’s going on beneath the surface.

🥇 Winner

The Day Alfred Googled Himself

Olivier Breuleux

Winner of Contest #225 🏆

Everyone has Googled themselves at one time or another in their lives. Even you, dear reader, I'll bet. Why did you do it? Curiosity? Validation? Finding your own LinkedIn profile? When Alfred did it, his reason was self-pity. He was nobody, he had nobody, and he had nothing. His immediate family had died years prior. His extended family did not remember he existed, nor did he remember them—they might never have existed. His high school acquaintances had all fled the miserable small town in which he was now left behind, alone in a mobile...

203 likes

⭐️ Shortlisted

Self Imagery

Michelle Oliver

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

Florien needed to find a real artist. Well, he was a real artist. Centuries of practice had honed his brush strokes to a level that far exceeded proficient. His landscapes were so vivid that you could feel the warm breeze and the soft sun. Or should that be, feel the soft breeze and warm sun? It had been over two hundred years since he’d set foot beyond these castle walls in daylight hours, so he wasn’t quite sure. But today, he needed to find an artist other than Mrs Bedford at the inn who’d painted the most hideous portrait&...

47 likes

Every Last Drop

Nicholas Andrew Clark

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

I enter Red Square from the south side. It's late; there's no one else around. My footfalls echo across the bricks. Then I spot him–a slender figure beneath one of the cherry trees outside Drake Hall. Silvery white hair pulled back in a ponytail. Black gloves, combat boots, a wool trench coat, the preferred attire of all psychopaths. I reach into my purse. In the next instant, he is standing right beside me. "Excuse me, Miss?" I pepper spray him in the face. He takes it stoically, with little more than a wince. I empty the entire can, but h...

34 likes

Bones

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

The newborn skull is made up of 5 bones.By adulthood, it is 22, the face 14.If I were to build a human, I would begin with the skull (occipital, parietals, ethmoidal, etc. etc.). I would build down the spine in individual pieces. I would create a nasal cavity wide and straight enough to breathe through, a cranium large enough to house the brain.But, sitting in front of a linoleum block which is sitting on a chalkboard desk which is sitting on Maine soil on the planet Earth, I am acutely aware that I can not begin from the inside-out of the h...

25 likes

Duped

Cole Oost

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

I always hated the Franktown Mall. The food court took up the entire top floor, but there was still nowhere to sit. Too many high school kids set up residence there during summer break when there was nothing better to do. I watched them all, sipping on their burnt, overpriced drinks from a chain coffee shop that had three identical locations across the mall. What was the use in having so many of the same thing? The food court also had a corn dog place that I used to work at. Well, not at the one in the Franktown Mall. The location I worked a...

17 likes

Reflect and Refract

Sheena Singh

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

In another life, I was a whip-smart, no-nonsense corporate lawyer who worked 70 hour weeks without flinching. In this one, I was struggling to complete the simplest of tasks. “Give it a shot. No judgment, no overthinking, just a simple drawing or painting or representation of yourself”, Ranjana, my therapist, had said not-so-convincingly. Her lilting, soft voice, typically a comfort to me, had irked me that day. I thought the assignment was a waste of time, and I was artistically challenged. That didn’t seem to matter to her though. On day...

15 likes

This week's prompts

Start your story with someone buying a cursed — or perhaps blessed —mirror from an antiques store.

Fantasy – 73 stories

Write a story about someone trying to paint (or otherwise create) a self-portrait.

Character – 66 stories

Write a story about someone coming across their doppelganger.

Mystery – 48 stories

Write a story about a character who one day notices that their reflection has taken on a life of its own.

Fantasy – 49 stories

Set your story in a house of mirrors and make the atmosphere increasingly eerie.

Horror – 42 stories

Stories

The Day Alfred Googled Himself

Olivier Breuleux

Winner of Contest #225 🏆

Everyone has Googled themselves at one time or another in their lives. Even you, dear reader, I'll bet. Why did you do it? Curiosity? Validation? Finding your own LinkedIn profile? When Alfred did it, his reason was self-pity. He was nobody, he had nobody, and he had nothing. His immediate family had died years prior. His extended family did not remember he existed, nor did he remember them—they might never have existed. His high school acquaintances had all fled the miserable small town in which he was now left behind, alone in a mobile...

203 likes

Self Imagery

Michelle Oliver

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

Florien needed to find a real artist. Well, he was a real artist. Centuries of practice had honed his brush strokes to a level that far exceeded proficient. His landscapes were so vivid that you could feel the warm breeze and the soft sun. Or should that be, feel the soft breeze and warm sun? It had been over two hundred years since he’d set foot beyond these castle walls in daylight hours, so he wasn’t quite sure. But today, he needed to find an artist other than Mrs Bedford at the inn who’d painted the most hideous portrait&...

47 likes

Age is a Broken Promise

Submitted to Contest #225

TW: Swearing, death, suicide, superheroes Karl Cent relaxed in his plush chair surrounded by paintings. “Apex Lad, it’s a pleasure to be invited to the first public exhibition of your paintings. Can you tell me why you chose the title Age is a Broken Promise?” Knowing the camera had cut to the muscular hero, the presenter checked that his microphone was hidden properly by his collar. “I thought that was the obvious bit. Please call me Alex or Apex. The Lad bit is too dated now. That’s the problem with my life. Time is moving on but I’m st...

44 likes

Returning Marie

Story Time

Submitted to Contest #225

Now before I say anything else, I just need to establish that I am not mad. I have every reason to be mad, but I’m not. I’m not mad. I’ve never been less mad than I am right now even though I have every reason to be madder than I’ve ever been in my life. To the best of my recollection, you were not working here when I came in on Sunday. I’m sure I would remember somebody with as many piercings as you, especially with you being such a young lady and all. I’m sure I would have made some sort of comment about how you don’t have a wedding ri...

43 likes

The Proposal

Submitted to Contest #225

There had to be more to life than funding other people’s dreams. Rachel Zahara fixed her hair in the foyer mirror, spritzing Baccarat Rouge on her neck and wrists, careful not to wake Brian. She walked down to the Hudson Market with a spring in her step. Once her deal finally closed, Rachel would escape the cold New York winter and get away to Riviera Maya. And Brian knew that she was expecting a proposal when they got there.When she met Brian seven years ago, they both had great jobs and seemed so far ahead of the game. She’d dreamed of sta...

42 likes

No Man's Land

Submitted to Contest #225

Nurse Hamden wheeled me down the wood-panelled hallway in a creaking wicker bath chair while I clutched my walking cane and a shoebox of personal effects. At the end of the passageway, she opened a door to reveal a room full of furniture shrouded in dust sheets and tea chests stacked three high. Straight ahead, a frail evening light peeked through French windows and cast the autumnal trees beyond into stark silhouette. “Well,” she said, standing before me. “What do we think, sir?” “Hmm,” I said, snorting beh...

38 likes

Fairest

Geir Westrul

Submitted to Contest #225

Looking into my reflective surface, she whispers:"Mirror, Mirror. Who is fairest of them all?"I always answer:"Your majesty, you are fairest of all."... and then I show her the very best social images of herself, the ones that are curated (by me) for the combination of most views and highest number of likes, with all the negging hater troll comments deleted (again, by me, her trusted AI assistant), and the most gushing, fawning, heart-emoji-filled superfan comments sorted to the top.Until today.Instead, today, I say:"Your majesty, ...

37 likes

Every Last Drop

Nicholas Andrew Clark

Shortlisted for Contest #225 ⭐️

I enter Red Square from the south side. It's late; there's no one else around. My footfalls echo across the bricks. Then I spot him–a slender figure beneath one of the cherry trees outside Drake Hall. Silvery white hair pulled back in a ponytail. Black gloves, combat boots, a wool trench coat, the preferred attire of all psychopaths. I reach into my purse. In the next instant, he is standing right beside me. "Excuse me, Miss?" I pepper spray him in the face. He takes it stoically, with little more than a wince. I empty the entire can, but h...

34 likes

Gertrude Inn

Hazel Ide

Submitted to Contest #225

The span of my childhood could be separated into two categories: Knowing and Not-knowing.In fact, everyone in my family, even the adults, could split similarly: those who knew and those who didn’t.Regardless of which category you fell into, everyone knew Grandma had certain… proclivities. It was an unspoken thing, yet you felt how heavily it threaded into every conversation and side-comment at family gatherings. No one really talked about it, not outright, but it was always there, lingering between the lines. The Not-knowing part of my ...

33 likes

The Mirror of Monte Cristo

Submitted to Contest #225

It was a Thanksgiving like any other and Charles Scribe heated up a Hungry Man Roasted Carved Turkey dinner and poured himself a glass of Robert Mondavi cabernet in a plastic cup. Charles took his meal at his writing desk, as there was no dinner table in his apartment. Wine was reserved for holidays and though he had placed a bottle-stopper tightly over the wine bottle, it was still flat because it had been sitting in the refrigerator since the Fourth of July.The six-foot by eight-foot, forty-eight square foot writing nook by the far walls o...

30 likes

Arthur

Submitted to Contest #225

Arthur held his father’s hand tightly. His cap fixed to his head, breeches cinched at his waist with a small leather belt. His first tie knotted at his collar, his father showing him how to tie it as he did it for his young son. Arthur was studious, even at the young age of seven. Serious. Determined. He absorbed everything he could and kept records. First in his head. As he aged, in journals. Anything he found interesting or useful. He peered from the bench into the casket, seeing for the first time a dead body. He knew this one before. Bef...

30 likes

The Black Box

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #225

Gabby double checked the address in her phone as her small Toyota climbed over rocks and roots down Orchard Road. After confirming she was indeed going in the right direction, she squinted at what appeared to be a massive, ivy covered, red brick building in the distance. The morning sun was cutting through just enough autumn fog to allow her to see it must have been built ages ago. The brick was crumbling, the ivy stretching, the windows coated with dusty memories. She had received an email giving her a heads-up that a very worthwhile...

29 likes

Watercolors

AnneMarie Miles

Submitted to Contest #225

He tells me to sit still.It is not hard to do. I am lost in thought, lost in my reasons for being here.I keep thinking of that woman I never knew. The person in the painting on the wall in the hallway of the house I grew up in. I keeping thinking about what it would have been like to know her, what it would have been like to call her my grandmother.Or would you have preferred, abuela? Did you speak English? Even that, I do not know. Even that, my father will not say.He only says, You look just like her.I test your name out on my lips: Mary. ...

29 likes

Doppel

Sean Packard

Submitted to Contest #225

Doppel by Sean Glenn Douglas Packard Why is it that when we stare into terror, we often stare into our own eyes? I think it’s the way we’re wired. It’s our thoughts. We have access to them but nobody else; and just as it is impossible for foreign hands to unscrew our craniums and peer inside, so too do the minds of others remain unknowable to us. We’re alarmed at minds different from our own. We fear those that could be similar. Because we don’t have to imagi...

28 likes

What Says The Mirror

Mary Bendickson

Submitted to Contest #225

What Says The Mirror“Don't judge me. Yeah, I am talking to you, Doppelganger. I only can repeat what I see. You come to me every day. Morning and night. Looking. Searching. Asking questions. Always with the questions. What do you expect from me?“You want me to force you to confront your own truths? Well, the truth is--How should I know? Look at you! That's all I can help you with. I am the same. Yesterday, today and probably will be tomorrow.“I hang around here all the time, whether you are around or not, and stare at that stupid wall over t...

27 likes

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Contest #226

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

278

Entries

106

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Nov 24, 2023 EST

Won by Olivier Breuleux 🏆

Title: The Day Alfred Googled Himself

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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