Vanity

I just finished eating my fairly Spartan dinner of Dinty Moore beef stew and rice.  Rinsed the bowl and put it in the sink.  Sat back down at the kitchen table, book still in hand, head still in the story.  Pushed my chair back and rested my left ankle on my right knee as I sat back.

Something prompted me to look up at this point, and I looked directly into the full-length mirror leaning against the heater, which is next to the stove.  I don’t know who the man staring back at me is.  He’s clean-cut and good looking; relaxed in his t-shirt and jeans.  Behind him I see the ordered clutter of my kitchen.

And it strikes me that this dude is single.  For a moment, I’m comfortably surprised by this fact.  I mean, hell, I cook, I clean, I’m well-groomed and handsome.  My surroundings certainly don’t speak of decadence, but I’m making a decent living.  Who wouldn’t want to be with the dude in the mirror?

Then I’m struck by the fact that the mirror isn’t all that clean – the image isn’t as crisp as it could be.  And this makes me think of this writing assignment:  how I my plan was to do something fancy to show off my intelligence.  Maybe an extended anlogy, describing the mirror itself instead of who it reflects.  The old mirror as a metaphor for the subject’s character:  that intense bouts of scrubbing with many and varying detergents and implements for different short periods never seems to yield the shining result strived for; that the only way it’s gotten to this level of reflection has been through consistent cleaning on a regular basis.

So I sit here, alone, admiring my reflection.  Hell, maybe they’ll name a flower after me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 12:22 am and is filed under Monthly Finalists, Weekly Finalist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.