The Reflection

The mirror in the changing room was looking back at her with her own reflection. Yes this dress did suit her, colour and shape were perfect, yes it looked better than the last. That one was hideous, a puffball meringue of a dress in a beautiful turqoiuse colour, nice colour, bad dress.
Tessa looked herself up and down again in the new one and thought nice top half, shame about the bottom. Despite having a boyfriend who told her he loved her frequently and didn’t care about her size she still thought to her self that she could lose some weight, particular some of her thigh fat. Some from her thighs maybe, and possibly make her bum a bit more toned, but that wouldn’t happen for two reasons, one, she never like the gym and she worked in an office where she sat down all day, and two, she liked her food too much, being lactose intolerant made her problem worse, she loved her milk chocolate and milky tea’s in the morning, the alternatives just didn’t taste right.
Unless she started to do something drastic ,like do some regular exercise or cut down on the haribo, that just wasn’t going to happen, life wasn’t fair, if only fairy godmothers existed.
Tessa peered in the mirror, something wasn’t right, she started concentrating on something in her hair in the mirror and realised the light was shining off grey hairs, she recoiled a bit, trying to think what was the best way of hiding them, or failing that plucking them out, the latter would hurt more, then:
‘Yes, it is a grey hair’
The voice made her jump so high she felt her stomach in her mouth.
‘Who’s there?’ Tessa said
‘ Relax it’s just me, us’
Tessa looked into the mirror again and took another step back in surprise, her reflection was talking to her.
‘Hi’ said her reflection, smiling her best contented smile, was it genuine?
‘Hi’
Tessa said nervously and sort of waved back at her self.
‘ Don’t be nervous, it’s just yourself, pretend your a kid again’
‘ I am , I’m talking to myself, I haven’t done that in awhile’
‘ Yes you have , last night you burnt your dinner and you said to yourself ‘oh crap maybe I should have turned down the oven’
‘ I did didn’t I’
‘or how about last week, when you whacked your foot on the end of the bed, OK it mainly consisted of swearing, but still’
‘ Al right , so maybe I do it more than I thought, but answer me one thing’
‘ Yes, your bum does look big in this, but that’s OK, it’s got a nice shape and the colour is nice, you should get this one’
‘Not that, but thanks a bunch, I was thinking more how are you able to talk to me, this doesn’t happen at home’
‘ It’s the mirror, it’s very old, 18th century I think, the frame is 1940’s ash though, a ‘witch’ in the 18th century cursed her reflection for not depicting her true self, very snow white, personally I think it’s a load of bollocks personally, but there you have it’
The reflection just sighed and looked back at Tessa all calm and confident, There was a minutes silence when Tessa said
‘ So how did you get here?’
‘ It’s been so long I can’t quite remember, it feels like I have been here forever’
‘ That’s nice, well bye then’
Tessa made to pick up discarded clothes from the floor including the meringue and make a hasty exist from the changing rooms when
‘ Hey , you know it’s rude not to say a proper goodbye to yourself don’t you’
‘ Good bye’
Tessa said, a bit absent-mindedly.
‘ Come on not like that, pretend like I’m one of your friends and give a kiss on the cheek, I did just compliment you on your dress sense’
‘Al right fine’
Tessa leaned in to kiss the mirror when all of a sudden her reflection grabbed at her arms with a strong grip and wouldn’t let go, as her reflection held on it started to pull itself out of the mirror, Tessa was in shock and didn’t know what was happening, she came nose to nose with her reflection, or evil identical twin in hindsight. Tessa was suddenly propelled round the other way and pushed into the mirror, she instinctively and tried to get out the way she came in, but the reflection just smiled back an evil smile and put her finger to her lips to hush Tessa, the reflection calmly picked up her things off the floor and walked out of the changing rooms. Inside the mirror Tessa was screaming at the top of her lungs and pounding the glass, but know one heard her, and no-one ever would as she faded away, and the mirror waited for someone else to look into their cursed reflection.

The Christmas lights

The Christmas lights flickered on and off at seconds intervals, some bright white , some red with red ruby tips. They enjoyed themselves being hung around an antique looking mirror in a moderately fashionable clothes shop.

All brothers and sisters together, flashing their little hearts out for anyone caring to look at them, and make funny noises like ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’. ‘Life’ was good, Christmas was their time for the year to shine, to do the thing they do best. Th rest of the year this particular set of Christmas lights was wrapped around a postal tube and put in a dark dry cupboard, but at least they were looked after, according to a Christmas fairy not all rope lights and baubles were as fortunate, some were kept in shocking conditions, lights were tangled in a mess, shoved in a bag and not shown any love, until a human decided to put them up once a year and realised that they were in such a tangle that they just threw them out into the garbage and the owner just bought new ones, it was a heartbreaking tale, they hoped it would never happen to them.

One of the many brothers and sisters on this particular rope of lights was a bit of a show off and was determined to shine as brightly as they could, making the others look quite flat and forlorn, but like any light that tries it’s hardest to shine the brightest light was short lived and soon blew out, but with so many lights it was not replaced instantly, so the brightest had to endure being the dullest for once, despite being warned about out shining the others, it was now dejected by the family until someone noticed and took pity on the little light and decided to change the bulb.

Gladioli

The flowers sat there impassive of their surroundings, just soaking up the water in their patterned ceramic vase that was too small for all of them. The greenery shone in the bright artificial light of the shop and their white petals shone brightly as fresh flowers should. Gladioli particularly, not all the buds had flowered and the top of them were curved towards the sky , as if were competing with each other, who’ll get their first.

The volunteers to the shop would often come too close to see if they smelt nice, the odour was subtle and close enough the volunteers would see the petals sparkle where the light caught them. They loved the warmth off the lights and till next to them., in the next few days more of the buds should flower to join their brothers and sisters.
There were five of them five proud stalks all ving for attention from passing trade, volunteers and shoppers alike, one had more flowers than the rest and as such got there soon, even though they were jealous.

One at the side would be dangerously close to falling out of the vase if it wasn’t for the chocolate stand it rested on, it also had the least flowers out but it didn’t mind because it was pointed away from the stifling heat it thought of the till, the heat was too much for it, sulking generally wasn’t a gladiola’s nature but this particular stem wasn’t having any of it.
After days being in the flower shop with their friends surrounding them they felt sad, they missed their friends and yet to be singly admired was a privilege, especially when everyone said they were so pretty.

Over the days the other flowers shot out of their pods and brightened up a rather uniform space on the desk where the till and chocolate sat. The flowers started to wilt, they started going yellow at the edges and crisping up and petals were dropping onto the desk top and haphazardly getting thrown in to the bin with the recycling. After the last petal dropped they were no longer gorgeous white gladioli to brighten up any room, they were green stalks and leaves with no distinguishing features except for being green leaves to brighten a charity shop with sumptuous clothes in different clothes to do the talking instead.