Daily Prompt: Mirror

She was a perfect mirror. Do not imagine an empty vessel for others to pour their ideas into. That would make her a glass pane, something you look through. She had some of the smooth and clear qualities of glass, but what caused the reflection was the darkness behind it. Men and women looked at her and saw only themselves because what lay behind the surface was perfectly opaque and totally dark. She wasn’t a mirror only in that she reflected a person back to them. She also, like a mirror, was dangerous to break. The idea of seven years bad luck doesn’t come from the jagged glass, but the fractured image, the darkness revealed in the shards. A roommate found that out in college when she gossiped about her, told what she’d said about a friend to the friend. There was no explosion, just a relentless reflecting back how the girl had failed to live up to her own stated values, that by changing the least detail, thus she had essentially lied, become untrustworthy, someone undeserving of friendship. The girl started having migraines, missing classes, and dropped out. For the rest of the semester, her side of the dorm room remained empty. She never moved a thing to that side, never spread out. The stripped bed, the blank walls, and the empty desk made her happy in a way, happy to reflect nothing. A mirror without a reflection is a peaceful, frightening thing.

HOW THIS WORKS: I have a jar of nouns. I pick one at random and post it. If I’ve done this right, none of the prompts will be something you’re excited to write about. The excitement comes through what you find as you write about the commonplace.

By the end of the day, write a minimum of 250 words but no more than 500 instigated by the noun.

Tomorrow, I will post my effort here and make a new post for whatever word comes out of the jar next. You are invited to post your writing or link to it in the comments so others can read it. Visit yesterday’s prompt to see what showed up there, whether you wrote your own or posted it.

You can comment without contributing. However: No critiques, please, but discussion of the process most welcome.