Know Thy Self

Jan 9, 2018

I'm finally getting back to writing club meetings.  Fast fiction with friends is fun.  You can't be too precious or too wordy.  When the timer goes off, it's time to read.  From one writing prompt come a host of varied and entertaining stories.  Time to start posting some again so they can escape the oblivion of my computer and go wander like bubbles in the virtual world.  Pop up and be free.

Time allotted: 20 minutes

Prompt: "She studied her face in the mirror."

Brenda stared the person opposite her.  Did she know the woman staring back?  She had seen her before, but she just couldn’t put her finger on when, but she was sure.

Continuing along the hallway, she glanced someone joining her out of the corner of her eye.  Another woman.  Brenda had the sinking feeling she should know this person with a glass eyed stare.  Two eyes, one brown and one blue.  Heterochromia really narrowed it down.  One ski slope nose.  She didn’t like that ski slope nose, shoulder length hair, asymmetrical cut, and a scar along her chin.  The stranger was dressed in jeans and a khaki blouse just like Brenda.

Brenda turned right, following along the mirrored corridor.  The same woman walked along on either side in perfect rhythm.  Brenda stepped to the side, and sat on the bench in the corner.  The other woman followed suit matching her movements and multiplied by five. 

As she looked at the reflection opposite, the image folded on itself infinitely, multiplying the woman she did not recognize.  Yet, this was her.

Brad’s idea to cure her by walking the hall of mirrors was growing more and more unsettling.  It wasn’t working, instead her confusion grew.  Why couldn’t she hold the memory of herself?

Brenda looked intensely into her reflection.  She touched her cheek and the reflection followed suit.  The knowledge that nothing and everything had changed.  One bump on the head.  She may have lost herself in the accident and though she found herself again, she’d always look into the face of someone new.  Facial agnosia, the doctor called it.  She marvelled at her inability to know her own image.  Maybe she’d learn to embrace the stranger that stared back anew with each blink of the eye.  She studied her face in the mirror.  Even with the scar, the person looking back was actually kind of beautiful.  "Hey, survivor, take a breath," she smiled.

I would have loved 5 more minutes for this one to tie it up at the end, but maybe it's better tied up briefly.  
Even when you can recognize yourself, sometimes you don't really like who you are when you look around 360°.  Acceptance of the things you can't change, healthy, but tough.  I admit, something I have't mastered.