Year: 2023

Little nugget,

When my gram kicked it, I thought I’d get her old fire gear, maybe some cash, not a cheap-o mirror.

I grasped the trinket by its grimy, beige handle, ran my finger along the pimply red rhinestones. Not gram’s style. Nor mine.

Maybe it made the viewer look particularly snazzy. I gazed in. My hair frizzed like limp fusilli and my meatball-colored eyes leered back. Disappointingly accurate. Three fresh scratches gaped across my clavicle, like a tiny demon had scraped its pitchfork against me.

My fingers fluttered to my neck, but the area felt apple skin smooth. The marks didn’t show in my bathroom mirror or later, in the back of my spoon as I shoveled in dinner.

Weird.

I didn’t think about the scratches again until midnight. I was hauling trash to the dumpster, flickering street lamp barely lighting my way, when a stray cat lunged and gashed my neck open.

Just what I needed in my grief: toxoplasmosis.

I ran to the bathroom, blood dripping into the sink like dying rose petals as I dabbed at the scratches. Three scratches.

I grabbed gram’s mirror. It revealed the scrapes alright, but they weren’t scarlet, as they appeared in my bathroom vanity. The bruises shone pink and faded as dollar store carnations, like I’d had the marks for days, not seconds.

Breathing yoga-deep, I clutched the countertop. This mirror showed the future. Of my face, anyway. I eyed it again, plastic and homely as ever.

Touché, gram. Touché.

After that, the mirror lived on my nightstand. I gave it a looksie every morning because you never know, right nug?

One day, a blizzard ripped across the state, snow piled high on the road like a kid got happy with a frosting tip. I planned on going out, determined not to let a little dusting halt my fun, but then I looked in gram’s mirror.

My right eye was a bloody, scrambled egg. My left ear dangled, a piece of chop meat the butcher hadn’t quite cleaved. I stayed home that night, scrolling through channels until the newsman announced it. A massive whiteout caused a twenty-car pile-up on the highway.

Praise be, ugly, magical looking glass. 

So anyway, if you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. Thanks to this mirror, I went out as a decrepit vulture and not as a young, smooshed-up pear on the interstate.

My gram never explained things, so here’s me correcting that. Keep the mirror close and it’ll get you out of a few scrapes, too.

Love you,

Gramma

P.S. Remind your mom to keep my casket closed. No one wants to see a shriveled up bean.

Morgan Nyx

Image: Google Images – Hand held mirror with ornate frame and handle