Misty's Mirror

Misty was feeling just a smidge guilty.

She had just purchased the most beautiful antique mirror she had ever seen. Even to her untrained eye, she knew it must be worth far more than what she had paid, likely at least two or three times the amount. But she also knew she definitely couldn’t afford more. That was why, when she had asked the pleasant elderly gentleman running the obscure shop about the mirror’s value, and in response he had shrugged and said, “I don’t know, what is it worth to you?”, she couldn’t help but name exactly what she had in her purse at the moment.

When he agreed, she had practically thrown the money on the counter. It took most of her considerable will to stand there and smile while he painstakingly wrapped the mirror in layer after layer of tissue paper and then insisted upon finding a large box to place it in. She had kept thinking he was going to get a closer look at it and realize what an error he’d made in accepting her price. At any moment, he would shake his head and say, “Oh, wait a minute…”, and the deal would be broken, and she would have to leave without her treasure.

But he hadn’t. He had wrapped the mirror and placed it in the box and even offered to help her out to her car. 

She quickly shook her head, not wanting to admit that she didn’t even own a car.

“No, thank you,” she said, “I can manage just fine.”

“All right then. A pleasure doing business with you, enjoy your new mirror. It might be very old, like me, but I guarantee it will always give you a most pleasing reflection.” His eyes seemed to twinkle at her as he held her gaze for what seemed like a very long moment, and she found herself unable to look away. Her heart began to race as she realized, she knew deep down in her very soul, that something about this was wrong. He gave a quick wink, and the spell was broken.

What an odd transaction, she thought, as she quickly gathered up the large box and hurried out of the store. In the small window of time it took her to go about a half dozen steps from the front door, she had all but convinced herself that she had imagined what she had thought she saw when holding the old man’s gaze. A few more steps after that, and the guilt of not paying the item’s worth was overwhelmingly overshadowed by the exhilaration of obtaining such glorious find. By the time she was struggling through her door with her purchase, she was barely able to contain her eagerness to unwrap her prize and gaze into it again.

Misty did not love her life. It wasn’t exactly horrendous, but it wasn’t particularly delightful, either. She did have a roof over her head, which is more than some people in this city could claim, but the roof was on a small, dingy apartment, with peeling paint in some corners, a kitchen faucet that consistently dripped, and a window in the bedroom that always felt drafty. The rent was cheap though and she was grateful for her warm bed. She also had a job - she waited tables at an outdated little corner diner. The pay was not great, but the owners were good to her and it was walking distance from her apartment. Not to mention she got the daily special for free when she worked a shift, and she always appreciated the hot meal.

Beyond the bare necessities, however, Misty didn’t have much of anything. Her apartment was sparsely furnished, everything in it was either something she was able to purchase second-hand or it had been left there by the previous tenant. 

She could have accepted everything and carried on contentedly enough, if it weren’t for the fact that she was lonely. She hadn’t had a lover in years, but that was actually quite trivial to her. Her loneliness ran so much deeper. Her job helped, even when the diner was quiet, she always had the cook and at least one of the owners to talk to. Sometimes on her days off, when she went a day or two without talking to anyone, she began to wonder if anything was real. She would sit on her threadbare couch, staring at her small TV (but not really seeing it), and sometimes she would imagine that she was dreaming. She would hold her breath in the hopes that eventually she would wake up, breathless and with her heart pounding in her ears, but oh-so-thankful that her unhappy dream wasn’t her reality. Then she would come to her senses, shake her head a little, get up and turn off the TV and go to bed.

At some point in recent months, she had taken to wandering the streets quite a bit when she wasn’t working. She would gaze into shop windows, sit on benches and smile at strangers, and occasionally stop in at the diner to say hello and have a cup of coffee. Every now and then, if she had saved some tips and had a few dollars in her pocket, she would find a pawn shop or maybe a dark little second-hand store and buy some cheap trinket, hoping that whatever little treasure she brought home would be just the thing to make her happy. They never were. 

That was how she had found herself in the cramped little shop that was nestled between a liquor store and an abandoned adult video depot. The door was set back a bit, so the shop was nearly completely hidden from the street. She didn’t see a name on the door, just a few knick-knacks in the small, dirty window beside the door. While pondering how it was possible that she had never noticed the place before, she pushed open the door and went in.

Now that she was home with her bounty, she kicked the door closed with her foot and set the box down on her couch. In spite of the fact that she was trembling with excitement, she decided she wanted to savour the moment, so she sat down beside the box, took a deep breath and carefully opened the cardboard flaps. She took a moment to contemplate the mound of colourful tissue paper. She reached in and began to move the paper aside. Bit by bit, she slowly and carefully uncovered the mirror. Soon she could see the hint of a reflection shining here and there, and an occasional glimpse of tarnished filigree and finally she could stand it no longer. She found herself tearing the paper away as quickly as she could, in a desperate, frenzied attempt to see her new treasure.

She carefully pulled the mirror out of the box and holding it with one hand, she used the other to sweep the box and all the paper onto the floor, so that she could prop the mirror on the end of the couch and get a better look at it. She stared lovingly at it for a long time. This was it, she was sure of it. This was the thing. She ran her fingers over the delicate design that framed the mirror. It didn’t matter that it was old. It didn’t matter that it was tarnished. It didn’t matter that the woman staring back at her looked disheveled and perhaps a little crazed. All that mattered was that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Eventually she fell asleep and when she awoke, her neck was stiff from sleeping pillowless on the hard couch. She reached up to rub it and realized when her stomach gurgled, that she had not eaten since yesterday morning and she was also ravenous. She glanced over at the mirror and smiled at her reflection. She was hungry and tired and stiff and rumpled, but she was practically glowing. The sun was beaming in the window beside her, making her usually-limp hair shine and her normally-lifeless eyes sparkle. She had never really noticed it, but she was actually kind of pretty in a certain light.. 

She smiled again and went over to her small kitchen and poured herself a bowl of cereal. When she opened the fridge and saw that she didn’t have any milk, she shrugged and put the bowl down. She wasn’t sure when it happened, but she found herself on the couch looking into the mirror. She was holding the box of cereal, shoveling it into her mouth with her hands and chewing mindlessly. She shook her head. What the hell? She must still be tired.

She thought a shower would clear her head. She walked to her bathroom, shedding her clothes and carelessly throwing them on the floor along the way. She turned the taps in the shower to where she always turned them. The water always took a few minutes to warm up so she stepped over to the bathroom mirror, intending to run a comb through her hair.

Her breath caught in her throat. She barely recognized the person looking back at her. She was thin, almost gaunt, with pale, papery skin and sunken eyes that were surrounded by dark shadows. She hurriedly turned away, telling herself her tired mind was imagining things and stepped into the shower. She closed her eyes and let the hot water run over her.

When she realized she was sitting naked on the couch and looking into the mirror again, she thought maybe she was sleepwalking. Maybe she was unwell. Maybe she was losing her mind. She could still hear the shower running but her skin and her hair were dry. 

At least her reflection in this mirror was actually her. She smiled at herself again. Yes, she liked this one better. She looked healthy and pretty and happy.

She remembered the shower and got up to turn it off, seemingly unaware of the cereal crunching under her feet. She walked to the bathroom and turned the shower off, careful to not so much as glance at the mirror. She turned to grab a bathrobe from her bedroom…

…and found herself looking into the antique mirror yet again. Her mind felt foggy, she couldn’t remember coming back to the couch. She was hungry again, had she eaten? She searched the reflection for answers, but there were none. There was only the beautiful mirror and her own alluring reflection. When did she put on the dress? Ah, it didn’t matter anyway. Oh look, there was her dashing husband, reaching for her from behind. She sighed happily and closed her eyes, waiting to feel his embrace.

When Misty had missed a shift at the diner for the first time, her boss Layla had worried a bit. It was unlike Misty to miss work at all, let alone without a call. Layla knew she appreciated the social time and the free meals almost as much as the meager wages, so it was really strange that she would just not show. She had tried calling Misty’s place a few times, but there was no answer.   

When Misty had missed her second and third shifts, Layla had tried calling her again. Again, she got no answer. When Misty had missed her fourth and fifth shifts, Layla had waffled back and forth between being worried and being angry, and finally she had gone to Misty’s place and banged on the door for almost twenty minutes. She thought briefly about calling the police, but ultimately she had just given up, and with a lot of heavy sighing, she went back to the diner to place another help-wanted sign in the window.

When Misty hadn’t paid her rent on time, her landlord politely knocked on her door for 3 days in a row. While it was quite unusual for Misty to not pay on time, it wasn’t unusual for the complex, so he finally decided to cut her a break and leave her be for a couple of weeks. She was a good tenant and he knew she would pay when she could.

When Misty had not paid her rent again the following month, the landlord went again to her door. When she didn’t answer his insistent hammering, he thought maybe something had happened and she had actually skipped out on the rent, so he shouted, “Hey Misty, you better be decent, I’m coming in!” 

The landlord turned the key and opened the door slowly. He walked in and stopped, dead in his tracks, unable for a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing. Then he took a step back, turned his head, and violently lost his breakfast.

Misty had died hunched over, naked and sickly, looking much like Gollum with his Precious in JRR Tolkien’s novels. Only what she had clutched in her skeletal fingers was a cheap old mirror, reflecting her deathly grimace back to her through the cloudy, broken surface.