Writing I'm Proud Of

I wrote this short scene for a writing contest a few months ago. It didn't win and never got published on the site, but I'm pretty proud of it regardless. It's my first real foray into fiction writing. I decided to publish it here, in celebration of the effort. It's a little dark, almost too dark for a blog devoted to the positive, but understand that the content is unimportant. It's the accomplishment that's being given a nod. My accomplishment, writing a meaningful bit of fiction for the first time. Maybe one day I'll be able to write something a tad longer.

The assignment was to write about a mirror, in 300 words or less. The mirror should be integral to the development of a character in some way. Beyond that the space was wide open. This was my entry.



His Dark Reflection

Donald’s unblinking gaze fixed itself firmly on the shabby reflection staring back from the truckstop restroom mirror. This one was behaving exactly like the last, which is to say, not properly. The inky black pupils stationed inside the smeary glass held his own in a dark conversation he could not withdraw from. Instead of reflecting his outward appearance, this mirror, like the terrifying portal in his hall closet, was reflecting his inner life. A grey-scale representation of everything he wished he wasn’t, illuminated in the flickering fluorescence of rest stop squalor. Had he not felt so insignificant next to the presence he felt through the glass he may have known that it was he alone controlling the situation.

But then Donald often forgot which side of the mirror he was on when he didn’t take his medication.

He regretted the backslide, but the emotion was lost amidst the torrent of self-loathing bursting violently from his glassy oppressor. Donald clawed at his eyes, dry discs baked by the unrepentant glare from the mirror. He pulled at the lids, struggling to shut out the gaze that reduced him to a silly lampoon of himself. The depth of his depravity, so coldly laid bare for he and all the patrons of Sonny's Truckstop Emporium stood in judgment, inches from his face and light years beyond any sense of reason.

He screamed, but more from compulsion than terror, as if the outburst were written into some tragic script he never had the benefit of reading. Whatever remaining sense of will Donald retained was slowly seeping over the threshold before him. He no longer cared about his predicament. He was simply a puppet. He peered at himself with curious detachment from inside the mirror. Why did he look so perplexed?