Narcissus: Reflected

He had long blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a clear complexion. There was no doubt about he was the hottest boy in the whole of Lanphier High School. Then the school bell rang. He sighed in regret and pulled himself away from the mirror. He had always hated school, the routine, the fact he couldn't look at himself, the homework, the lack of mirrors in the classrooms, the long hours. And oh, and did he mention the lack of mirrors?

He walked to the classroom with a look of pride that most people would assume came from the fact that he was the captain of the football team, or perhaps even from the adoring looks any of the girls in school gave him. The fact was he was upset over the fact he couldn't skive off this class again to stand in the bathroom and look at himself.

He collapsed into the desk at the back of the room and looked at the English teacher. He suddenly realized as she handed back the previous day's work that she was a substitute teacher. Her hair was long and blue, unlike any of the other frumpy, old teacher that taught at this institution.

Surely they didn't hire people with blue hair, he thought as she handed him his paper. It was funny, but he could have sworn that she hadn't called role yet. How could she have known who each of the students were? He shook his head at the thought, reminding himself that he did not care anyway.

She walked up to the board and started lecturing. This was always the point in the class where he fell asleep, or ceased to pay attention if the other students were too noisy to get any sleep. Never being one to do anything he did not want to do, he fell asleep.

He woke up when something that looked like a blackboard eraser hit him on the head, "What the..?" He finally managed to get out, "Is class over already?"

"It most certainly is not over, Nathan," responded the blue-haired sub, he had not figured out what her name was before he had fallen asleep, and he wondered how she knew his. Then again, he was the hottest boy on campus he thought with a smile.

"Then why did you wake me up?" He meant for the question to come out as if he had some authority over the classroom, but it came out sounding a little less than authoritarian, whiney even if he thought about it.

"Because," she said slowly as if talking to a rock, "We are in class, and you should be learning not sleeping."

He shrugged as if her opinion did not matter, then he noticed, as if for the first time amidst the chalk dust on his a desk a single sheet of paper that hadn't been there before. It was unlike anything he had ever seen in school, for it only had one sentence written on it. It read: What would you do if granted one wish?

He laughed out loud, "What is this?"

"It is your assignment, Nathan. I would appreciate it if you did while in class instead of getting someone to do it for you."

The sudden silence in the classroom unnerved him. He shrugged off the strange feeling of being put in his place and leaned back grabbing a pen from his bag and looked at the question again as the ambient noise in the room went back to its normal volume.

What would you do if granted one wish? What I would do, he thought. He knew the answer almost immediately and scrawled down in what was, in his opinion, perfect handwriting.

When the bell rang signaling the end of the period he got up and handed her the paper nigh on flying out of the room and down the hall heading to bathroom to improve his looks before going home for the day.

The substitute teacher smiled as she picked up the essays she had ha the children write on Narcissus, as the teacher had asked, and left with one paper in her hand. The name on it was Nathan Smith.

Once she reached home she sat down and looked at the paper. Unlike the other papers she had handed out, this one only had one question, what would you do if granted one wish? She knew the answer almost before she looked. She always had known the answers when certain people were confronted with questions like this, but she liked to pretend she didn't.

I wish that everything around me would turn into mirrors, so that I may gaze upon myself always. She smiled when she saw this, no mattered who she asked, they always gave her wishes with great loopholes. Maybe one day, She thought, someone will have the sense to ask for something that doesn't have such amusing loopholes. She sat in front of her half sphere and centered herself before intoning:

A wish you asked, and a wish I gave,
To give the thing of which you crave,
With this you, I will enslave.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Warn this boy what might befall,
When this wish he seeks to recall.

She smiled and the half sphere next to her turned from a golden statue of a man to Nathan in his room.

Nathan sat in his room and looked at the mirror, priding himself on his good looks. He had schoolbooks spread about him, but he had long ago given up any attempt at studying, not that he needed it being the football team captain and star.

All the sudden everything in his room rippled, he thought it was an earthquake, not that they had any in that area of the room, but he closed his eyes and hoped it wasn't. When he opened his eyes, everything was made of mirrors, the walls were full-length mirrors, and where his bed had been was a mirror shaped and rippled just like his sheets had been, his posters were mirror upon mirror. In short, everything had become a mirror in an instant.

He smiles and hundreds of him smiled back. I could get used to this, he thought. He lay on the bed, and realized all his books were now mirrors too.

Good, He thought, I did not need to study anyway. He heard his mom downstairs calling him to dinner. He was famished and ran down the stairs two at a time, noticing that everything else in the house were mirrors now too.

"Nathan! Oh there you are," his mother said, or better to the point said a figure that looked like fluid quicksilver. He could even see his smiling face in his mother's face. He sat down at the mirror table on a mirror chair and wondered if something was wrong with his sight.

"Is there something wrong Nathan?" His mother asked.

"No, nothing is wrong, practice was just tiring. What is for dinner?"

"Your favorite steak and fries."

He smiled and his stomach growled, "Fantastic!"

She smiled indulgently, or at least that is what he thought she did, the mirror-like coating on them obscured her familiar features.

She left the room to go to the grill and brought him back a platter of steak and fries, which looked like mirrors to him too. He was slowly getting sick of looking at himself as he cut the steak and put it in his mouth. Immediately it shattered into pieces and cuts up his mouth causing him to cry out in shock and pain.

"What is it son?" His mother asked as she cut up her own steak and ate it as if she was unaware it was a mirror.

"Mirrors, its all mirrors..." he said through a broken mouth, as he tasted the blood.

"I don't know what you are talking about. Are you sure you are feeling okay?"

"Yes, I am sure," he responded snapping at her. "Can't you see them? They are everywhere! Everything is a mirror even you and the grass!" he nigh on shouted as he began to laugh hysterically.

"I don't know what you are talking about son. I think there is something wrong here. Why don't you come with me, and we'll see if we can't find out what it is?"

He nodded silently as he got up, and went with her not caring what she was mumbling about. He did not even notice when she made a quick phone call before they went to the car.

*

"What do you think Doctor?" Nathan's mother asked as she looked at her son through the two-way mirror.

"Some kind of schizophrenia is my early analysis, but to be safe we should keep him here. I am afraid he may become a danger to himself as well as others," the Doctor rubbed a bruise he had received from Nathan as he had tried to put him into the padded cell.

"It is for the best I am sure," she replied before turning and walking away.

"Mirrors, all mirrors," was the last thing she ever heard her son say as she walked away from him, never to return.