Written for an English assignment last year -- we were allowed to write anything as long as it began with "Looking in the mirror..." So I therefore decided to see if I could both depress my teacher and get a good grade. I ended up getting an A, so yay. Enjoy.

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Looking in the mirror was something he simply did not do anymore. It was impossible, you see, for there were none remaining in his home.

It had been many months since the car crash that nearly killed him. He still could recall to mind the flames, and the heat, and then the darkness that had swallowed him. For days and days he had slept on, by means natural and artificial, until he awoke to the stark, chilling whiteness of the hospital room.

There was little more that could be done for him, the doctors had told him grimly. The fire and wreckage cause by the crash had done irreversible damage to his entire body. They had asked him one day, when he was still in bandages from head to foot, if he wanted to see himself. He had said yes, thinking, How terrible could it be? Tentatively, they held a mirror in front of his face, and he had nearly fainted from the horrific face of the person who stared back at him through half-closed eyes.

Undoable. Irrevocable. That was what he had heard the doctors in their terribly white coats muttering outside the curtain that surrounded his cot. He had asked them about plastic surgery. Surely, if anything could help him it was that. They shook their heads and consulted clipboards and made a few notes, telling him that it would be a long shot, that there was too much tissue damage, that he would look like this for the rest of his life.

His girlfriend of eleven months had come to visit him once the charts at the foot of his hospital bed triumphantly declared his condition to be “stable.” She had held his scabbing, bandaged hand lightly in hers so as not to cause him any pain, and talked to him in a soothing voice about how much better everything would be once he got back home. However, he knew that behind the soft kind sadness in her eyes and the supposed joy she felt at his decent recovery was hidden an understandable disgust. When she blew him a kiss and said she’d come back to visit the next day, leaving the large bouquet of flowers on the bedside table, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had immediately gone and washed her hands so as not to be contaminated by his condition.

She had continued to visit him almost every day, each time commenting on how much better he was looking. It pained him to see how she was lying through her teeth every time she said he was improving, every time she told him she loved him. He understood that he was made a monster by the accident. If she wanted leave, who could blame her? In his mind, he had imagined that she might just be pitying him, humoring him for the meantime because she would feel guilty to leave him now.

One day, she had produced a lipstick and a compact from her pocketbook. He was no expert on makeup, but he knew that what was inside the compact was better left hidden. She opened it, pointing the reflective surface towards her lips which she reapplied her lipstick. She had told him how much he had healed, and asked him if he wanted to see. The mirror in her hand came dangerously close to turning his way. Slipping into sudden paranoia, he had shouted “No!” in such as way that she was startled. Disconcerted, she left a few minutes later.

Finally, the day came when he was permitted to leave the hospital. She drove him to his house, which he had not seen in months. He had avoided the side mirrors of the car for the whole drive. When she had helped him to the door – as if the cane the doctors had given him was not enough – she had asked if he wanted her to come inside and fix him some coffee. He had answered quite coolly that he would be just fine, thank you, and she needn’t bother herself. Promising to call him the next morning, she had flashed him a pretty smile and given him a gentle hug before returning to her car and driving away.

It was the last time he saw her.

Upon entering his home, he realized that there were mirrors everywhere: in the bathroom, over the fireplace, in the hall. Silently and with averted eyes, he had taken them all down, or covered them with any dark cloth he could find. He was certain the promise of a phone call was a complete lie, and he did not want to ever have to see the reason he had lost her: himself. Grimly satisfied, he had decided that perhaps he might be alright alone. He went to bed after taking his medication and using the special salve the doctors had created for him.

The phone had rung in the morning, like a death-knell long overdue. As he rose groggily, he thought that perhaps if he had died in the accident he would not have to feel the pain of living without her. In his half-asleep state, he was unable to get to the phone, though, and the answering machine turned on.

It was she, saying cheerfully that she was just checking up on him and he must still be asleep. She asked him to call when he got the message, and then hung up. He had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing, and began to make himself breakfast.

But here, even more problems were encountered. The cutlery was shiny sterling silver, and he had accidentally caught a glimpse of his melted, scarred face in the fork and knife. This would never do. Plastic cutlery was the solution. And later, problems arose at night. He might see himself in the glass of the windows. Curtains, he had though. Curtains covering every window, shutting out the day and the night. I will never have to see myself again.

Eventually, every surface in his home that might show him even an inch of himself had been covered or discarded. She had continued to call, and she even came to his house once or twice and rang the bell. But the heavy curtains over the small windows by the door kept her from ever looking in. After some time, the calls and visits had grown fewer in number until they stopped altogether. He dwelt in silence. The phone was unplugged, the clocks unwound, the light never allowed in. She never bothered him anymore, her true feelings finally revealed.

He had been right about her all along.