Weekly Challenge #283 – Mirror

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Eighty-Three, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was Mirror

And we’ve got stories by:

Craig T.
Thomas
Tom
Gideon
Jeff
Zackmann
Chris Munroe
Paladin
Steven the Nuclear Man
Norval Joe
TJ
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.


Craig

“Look at you, you asshole. Look how fat you’ve gotten. What a gut. Turn sideways. Holy shit, look at that. You look like a bag of flour with little straw arms. Do some weights. Or go for a run. Or just get your fat ass up off the couch. I bet you’re tired just from standing here. Look, you’re sweating and you’re all flushed. Look at those chins, that wispy beard isn’t fooling anyone. I’m disgusted. No wonder women never talk to you, tubby.“

Andrew turned away from the mirror and the hurtful truths his reflection had said.

Thomas

When Lamont and Beverly checked into the Notell they had every intention of making a long lunch out of their tryst, before going back to work at Walmart. The east wall of the motel room was a mirror. Excitedly, they got right down to business. A few minutes into the fumbling and frantic foreplay, they could hear laughter and catcalls from the room next door. Lamont’s member flagged, and Beverly was too ruffled to continue. The room next door was sold out. The Moose Lodge rented the whole room, set up card chairs and were watching through the one-way glass.
##

Her views mirrored mine. Although I was not a reporter for The Times, Sylvia Knickerbocker’s column echoed my exquisite taste and refined upbringing. Her latest instruction on table settings, the placement of the flatware, the direction of the desert fork, and the position of the water goblet just were sooooo perfect. I referred to her latest column when I hosted a small luncheon for the Lady’s Auxiliary Board. Blythe, Ruth and Babs were impressed, and I’d hope they would stay after the meal and share a few tokes of the hookah before we got to work planning the charity benefit.

Tom

You think you got a sucky job try spending your days pandering to an over hill diva whom demand her vain self reflection needs bolstering by you. No I’m not Paris Hilton’s accounted. I’m Armando De La Sortoes Magic Mirror par excelente. I speak only the truth in an oracle of Delphic way, a sort of cocaine speed mumble. It keeps me from going to pieces. I’m working on a Joaquin Phoenix. How do you like the beard? Nearly slipped the other day screw up the order of: White and Snow. Damn Queen dragged a diamond across my eye. Bitch

Gideon

I loved the amazing work Hayley Mills did in “The Parent Trap”,
especially the scene where she and her ‘twin sister’ pretended they were
posing in front of a mirror. Many weekend afternoons were spent with my
sisters trying to emulate that act, matching poses and facial expressions.
Although it works better when you are twins of the same gender, it was still
fun and a fond memory.

50 years later I have decided to try it again. But I want to do it right.
I need someone as my identical twin, my “Hayley”.

Unfortunately, Haley Barbour is not available.

Jeff

I lean heavily on the bathroom sink, looking into the basin as if searching for answers.

I look up into the mirror and stare into my reflection for a long time. I feel a burning sensation in my eyes that I try to blink away. That is when the tears start to form and flow from my eyes and over my tired cheeks, dripping slowly into the sink below.

How did this happen? I lost my job. I lost my car. I lost my house. I lost my children. I lost my way.

At least I still have my tears.

Zackmann

When I look into the mirror is it really me?
Yesterday I looked and saw a young muscular man with sun bleached hair.
This morning when I shave I see a fat middle aged man with monster eyebrows having some grey eyebrow hairs sticking out at angles to the brown. At least most of my grey is in my whiskers and goes away as I shave. Now to put some rubbing alcohol on my face and grab my phone. Hello maintenance would you please check my electronic mirror. I believe the See Yourself as You Think You Look feature broken.

Munsi/Chris Munroe

I don’t know if I’m the evil twin.

I mean, I don’t feel evil and I have all my memories from before the teleportation accident, so that should make me the original, right?

On the other hand, does anybody self-identify as evil?

And my twin did also claim to be the original. Though now he’s dead. Tell you what, I’ll let you cast the tie-breaking vote.

Sound good to you?

Promise me you won’t scream for help, and I’ll take the gag out of your mouth so you can tell me which one of us you think’s the evil twin…

Paladin

Do you ever look in the mirror and wonder what the other guy is thinking? Probably not, but you probably don’t have a mirror like mine. There’s more to see than just me. At first it was little things, like a towel or a bottle out of place. Then the wall was the wrong color. One day there was a fire. One day there were distant trees shaking, and not from the wind. Every day I’m there looking at myself. I wonder if he looks at me and wonders what I’m thinking.

Steven

He stares at me, tied and gagged in my basement, and I remember.

The first time I heard my father’s voice in my own laugh. The first time I realized I was turning into my dad.

This — thing, clone, son, whatever — is different.

It stole my mannerisms. It’s a distorted mimicry. This thing doesn’t think. It just pretends. It thrusts itself into the nests of our hearts. Like a cuckoo, it shoves everything else aside to fall to the ground. And then it feeds.

The thing isn’t like me. I see the difference. It’s a funhouse reflection.

Bullets shatter mirrors.

Norval Joe

Rudy Giuliani looked in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw. He saw nothing.
“I’ve faded away,” he muttered and tried to think of anything he had accomplished in the last ten years, since the fatefull 911.
Nothing but propaganda and double talk.
“Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy,” and “It’s about time law enforcement got as organized as organized crime”
“Who writes this crap,” he asked himself.
Wanting to do something worthwhile, he did a quick internet search, opened his word processor and began to type, “Lawrence Simon looked in the mirror….

TJ

No, I recognize the eMusicalChairs service is free to look, but I wanted
to get a sense of who else is actually looking before I give you… what
is this, $277 for the first three months? I’ve got to pay
eMusicalChairs the equivalent of like five or six first dates up front
to “meet” people I don’t know even exist. You could’ve hired
profile trolls to create fake profiles that sound too good to be true
until you get my money and then *beep* it’s Svetlana from Warsaw with
profile closeup of wart in mirror and that’s it. Alright… fine.

Planet Z

I asked the priest where the monster was.

He said “In the mirror.”

“When you look at it, or when I look at it?”

“Anyone.”

So, I looked at the mirror, and saw the monster there.

He was furry, blue, and had big round white eyes.

“This isn’t a mirror,” I said. “It’s a painting of Grover the Muppet.”

The priest stepped next to me, looked at the painting, and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I thought that was me,” said the priest.

He rubbed his big red paws over his fur and left to light some vespers candles.