“Oh my God, something is horribly wrong here,” Cindy cried out, loud enough for her husband to hear. “Come and take a look at this mirror. I just can’t believe my eyes.”
James ran up the stairs to the bathroom, eager to offer help. “What’s the problem?” he asked, panting.
“I looked in the mirror and you know what I saw? Wrinkles! Can you imagine? How much did we pay for these high-tech mirrors that show your face as you want to see it, and not how it actually is? I want this thing looked at, James, and if it can’t be fixed I demand a refund. I just can’t have this.”
“Let me see,” James said. He checked the image of his wife in the mirror and frowned. “Now this is strange. First I thought the mirror was malfunctioning and showed your real mirror image, but it isn’t. Actually, the wrinkles it shows are worse than the real ones. That means its software is still functioning, but not the way it should.”
“Do you have an explanation for that?”
James shook his head. “Some kind of glitch, perhaps. Or the system might be hacked. These mirrors have a wireless connection to the manufacturer, for automatic upgrades and maintenance. Maybe some guys gained access to that system. I’ll have it fixed, honey, don’t worry. Forget those wrinkles. They’re not all that bad.”
“It would be easier to forget them if I didn’t see them. Wasn’t that the whole point of buying these enhanced mirrors? We don’t have to take this, James.”
“I’ll check it out,” he promised her. “Take it easy.”
***
James called his wife during lunch break. “Honey, I found out what’s wrong with that mirror. It’s not a glitch, the system hasn’t been hacked, and the software isn’t malfunctioning. This is a problem of another order entirely.”
“What are you trying to tell me, James?”
“It turns out that Morning Beauty, the company that produced those enhanced mirrors, was sold to Cream Weaver. Now this happens to be one of the leading contenders in the cosmetics industry. Are you beginning to see the pattern, honey?”
“Don’t tell me they’re using these mirrors now to promote their own stuff, like their brand of wrinkle eraser. They can’t do that, can they?”
“As a matter of fact, they can. They’re no longer bound by any contracts established in the name of Morning Beauty.”
“So what do we do now? Throw those mirrors away? Or simply avoid looking at them? One thing I definitely won’t do is play along with their game and buy massive doses of wrinkle eraser.”
“The wrinkles you see aren’t real anyway. I’m sorry, honey, but we’ll just have to live with it.”
“I guess our options are limited. I’ll just have to remind myself constantly those wrinkles aren’t really there. What a waste of money! We might as well have kept our old mirrors.”
“You’re absolutely right,” James said. “But we bought these, so why not use them?”
***
A few weeks later Cindy looked in the mirror and noticed that there was no trace left of the wrinkles she had by now managed to ignore. However, her face looked exceptionally pale. She was about to call her husband when it occurred to her what had probably happened.
I suppose that damned cosmetics company just sold Morning Beauty to the sunbed industry, she thought, relieved that the wrinkles were gone, if not the tricks of the trade.
Frank Roger was born in 1957 in Ghent, Belgium. His first story appeared in 1975. Since then his stories appear in an increasing number of languages in all sorts of magazines, anthologies and other venues, and since 2000, story collections are published, also in various languages. Apart from fiction, he also produces collages and graphic work in a surrealist and satirical tradition. By now he has more than 700 short story publications (including a few short novels) to his credit in more than 30 languages. Critics describe his work as a blend of genres and styles: fantasy, satire, surrealism, science fiction and black humour.
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14 Responses to “MIRROR, MIRROR • by Frank Roger”
Comments
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November 30th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I liked this one! 5 from me.
November 30th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Wonderful! The marvels of technology and computers! (And marketing, let us not forget marketing!) Five reflections!
November 30th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Clunky dialog killed this one for me. Too much exposition crammed between the quotation marks.
–John
November 30th, 2009 at 8:42 am
“Vanity, thy name is woman!”
November 30th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Great story about ridiculous consumers. Makes me think about the millions wasted on cell phone ring tones and the GPS’s people insist on needing to help them find the grocery store when they already know where it is.
A great quote I once heard;
Marketing is what you do when your product is no good.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:33 am
A cute idea, but not much of a story. There are no people here, just characters reciting lines. There’s a huge improbability in the idea that companies can simply ignore contracts executed by their predecessors, and another in the idea that James and Cindy would “just use them” after the change had happened.
There’s no tension here, a prerequisite if you’re going to spring a “twist” ending on the readers; and thus no “gotcha” at the end. The payoff lines at the end fell flat.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:54 am
The dialogue had trouble flowing normally between 2 people. It seemed forced and unbelievable. The concept for the story was interesting though. Could have used a “power” ending, something with punch.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I liked this story. Would it be too much trouble for you to give us the address of the company that made these mirrors????
November 30th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
The dialog and flow of this story reminded me very much of the 1950s radio show X Minus One, of which I adore every episode.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
What J.C. said.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I loved thos story, reminded me of an earlier on eon this site about a magic mirror, but it didn’t immitate that story at all. Good job!
November 30th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I agree that the concept is great, but the dialogue, characters and tension are a little wanting.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:54 am
Bob wrote “There’s a huge improbability in the idea that companies can simply ignore contracts executed by their predecessors”.
No, there isn’t; it happens all the time. Basically, only their predecessors owed it. Either the new company is offering a new contract to people it has details for, or the old contracts had clauses allowing variation (they often allow some, just for flexibility as availability of resources changes) – or people who want the old contracts can indeed insist on them, but only to the old company (which may not even be around any more). If they ask the new company for the old deal, there’s room to negotiate (if it wants their business), but most likely they’ll get a permitted variation or even have to walk away, maybe even paying an early exit fee for not accepting a reasonable variation.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Cute concept. Agree with previous comments on the clunky dialog.
And hilarious that it’s an anti-aging ad at the bottom.