Winning Stories 2023

     On a Tuesday in November at 3:41 pm, I had come to the conclusion that nothing is real. The thought came to me while I was waiting for my wife, Clotilda, to get back from work at the bar. I sat on my grandparents’ bathroom floor, listening to the throbbing hum of Grandmother’s old washing machine. Of course, she’s no longer alive, and neither is Grandfather. However, it could be true that they were never really living in the first place. They may have been replaced with mirrors at birth, pitiful self-replacements. In their last years of life, they appeared to fade with time, and never seemed to care about anything. They were just there. For some, that’s all that mattered.
     I quickly got to my feet, wondering whether I was a victim of my own theory. I couldn’t be and would never think of myself in such a way – that is, until I had gotten a good look at myself. My own mirror image was a rather pathetic and watered-down version of who I really was. I had a frail body and pale skin, with piercing cheekbones and a pointed nose. My mouth was set in a permanent grimace. I touched the glass with my fingers to meet bony, twitching digits, knuckles protruding from the skin. The only thing remotely attractive about me was my eyes – a sweet sepia, liquid and bright. The flickering fluorescent lights caused my pupils to expand and shrink repeatedly. It made my retinas burn, and I shut my eyes, just for a moment.
     “You don’t exist.”
     I didn’t remember if I had said the words. The voice sounded like my own, despite not having opened my lips. I forced my eyelids open to look in the mirror, but I couldn’t see myself anymore. My mirrored self was distorted, more of a creature than a person.